Question about one of the AQ Test questions

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"If I try to imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind"

By imagine does it mean something imaginary I've made up or could it also refer to pictures of things that have really happened in your life? I find this question quite confusing and vague.

Thank you!

Well, they don't specify, so I guess they mean generally, for all those kinds of things. They seem to think that if you have trouble picturing things, that's suggestive of being on the spectrum (i.e. they score one point if you either slightly or definitely disagree). I suppose they want you to say whether you have trouble picturing stuff in general, and the "if I try to imagine something" is superfluous.

Do I have trouble picturing things? I've no idea. I seem able to do it to some extent, but not photographically, more like a sketch, unless I make a definite effort to get a picture in my mind. it depends what it is. I can easily picture a triangle. I can picture more complex things but only a few elements at a time. Does that count as difficulty? And how am I supposed to compare my skill at picturing things with that of other people? I've never asked them, and if I did, it would take some time to evaluate whether there was a difference between us. I'd have to do that with a random sample of several people to get an idea of how skilled I was at it. Even then, how do I know they told me the truth? People are notorious for overstating their abilities, aren't they? Am I really expected to go to that trouble? Do normal people go to that trouble? I doubt it. Yet without such a reference, as far as I can tell my internal idea of my picturing skills is pretty meaningless. All I can say is that I can do it to some extent. I could explain all this to the assessor, but they might think I was being oppositional-defiant. Whoever dreamed up the test must have thought it wasn't hard to answer. Does that make me weird?

Personally I see it as a pretty feeble test, as it's full of general questions to which the true answers are often highly nuanced but they insist on a black-and-white "agree" or "disagree" response, with no scope to say "I don't know" or "it depends." Even the nuance they seem to allow with the choice between "slightly" and "definitely" agreeing or disagreeing is just a placebo, the nuance makes no difference to the score. Why do they try to dupe us like that?

https://aspergerstest.net/interpreting-aq-test-results/

It sounds like a trick question or rather a question that might be interpreted in several ways.

One of the attributes that is sometimes used to describe Asperger's or High Functioning Autistics is
"a lack of imagination".

But from my perspective this isn't quite true because I have a very vivid imagination. In reading deeper, I think that "a lack of imagination" relates to social imagination. I lack the ability to understand what people are thinking or feeling.

From another perspective, some autistics like Temple Grandin thinks in term of pictures instead of words. It is almost like she accesses from all the photographs of everything she has seen during her life. So whereas she might have the ability to picture something she has once seen before it might be challenging to picture something she never seen before.

Anyways from my perspective I would interpret the question If I try to imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind. as the following:

I would substitute the word "something" with "one eyed one horned flying purple people eater".
Close your eyes and see if you can imagine this? Yes or No

^
Given that Temple Grandin thinks in pictures, I rather wonder what that AQ test question could possibly have to do with ASD. Indeed, I myself think primarily in pictures as far as I know. It took me years to realise it because I'm so close to my thoughts that I couldn't see it, if you know what I mean, but it does seem to be mainly pictures. If we couldn't hold a picture in our imagination, we'd not be able to think in pictures. I can relate to a lot of this article, though I'd have some trouble running 3D simulations, I get on a lot better if I can make real models and prototypes if it's a complicated contraption I'm working on, though if I've done similar things before then I seem to be able to remember the 3D of the contraption enough. In 2 dimensions I do pretty well.
https://grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html