Do you think visually or verbally?

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Today I learned that some people think in pictures. I had no idea that this was even possible until this morning when I was having a conversation with my NT boyfriend about how animals think.

"They think in pictures" said he.

"They do what?" said I.

"They think in pictures."

I was baffled.

"Do you think in pictures?"

"Yes."


Well, I can't. I can *only* think in words. He asked me to try to visualize a duck and I couldn't do it, my brain just started listing a ton of attributes. I thought perhaps it had nothing to do with having asperger's (I was diagnosed first when I was seven and re-diagnosed recently for university) but then I started looking into the matter and saw that Temple Grandin has a book "Thinking in Pictures" in which she asserts that people with autism think only in pictures. Clearly this isn't so if I can only think in words. I think it may have something to do with autism vs. asperger's or left brain vs. right brain.

What about you guys?

Oh and hi, I'm new here.

I put that I think verbally, but I actually think that the words are a clarification of a thought that exists on a level before words - I can't grasp hold of a thought without putting it into words, but the thought is there before the words are.

Verbally, except I get sort of visual "shadows" when I remember certain things...however, it is VERY hard for me to get a really clear visual, even when I'm trying.

The exception is days of the week and months of the year...I do physically see those, as numbers going along sort of a...rollercoaster. Don't ask.

I have two ways of thinking. My first and most natural way is, for lack of a better term, sensory images. Some of it is pictures, but for the most part I think the same way I experience, through my senses. For instance, if someone describes how something smells, my "mind's nose" creates it for me, if it can. Unfortunately not much translates into sensory input like that, so my second way of thinking is with words and pictures. I don't see or hear the words, they're just there.

Whenever I think of something it seems to appear first as an image, and then things that are associated with that image start coming into my mind as well. Like an above example - if I was to think of a duck I would first see a very basic duck, then a duck swimming in the water and then maybe a bridge that I'm standing on looking down at this duck. Usually it's only after I have the images in my mind that I start thinking of words associated with them.

it's leftbrainer v.s. rightbrainer

while one half of the brain works with words, logic and facts the other part works with images, sounds and abstract-chaos.

The fun thing is that people that can not picture a duck in their head can picture a triangle, circle, square etc as these are part of logic....

You must keep in mind that if there's a thought you don't want to think you must think it anyway, otherwise this will lead to panic attacks.

I think in pictures 100%.... if I learn a new word which I cannot associate with a picture, I tend to spell it in my head and visualize the letters.

I study too much