Does Aphantasia exist for senses other than vision?
Does Aphantasia exist for senses other than vision?
I began to consider this as my mouth filled with the flavor of pineapple as I remembered the flavor of a pineapple.
Do other senses suffer from the same issue?
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Just last week I was looking up ADHD and autism in blind people, but I was also questioning whether blind people could have aphantasia. Or rather, how does blind people perceive roundness or a circle in their mind? They know what it feels like at least, so is it tied to some other sense? I'm guessing blind people have a way of mapping out surroundings and 3D space, but I imagine explaining how a person thinks about stuff like this is as hard to describe as whether two people perceive the same colours the same way.
People with aphantasia have improved spatial memory that tries to compensate for episodic memory.
So the first thing that I feel when I try to remember something is my position in the room, or where the person speaking to me was standing.
Same thing if I try and ‘see’ a circle. I’ll just feel the dimensions. Hard to describe but it’s almost like pressure in my frontal cortex. A circle feels like coming down from the left and right in a circular pattern, whereas imagining a tree feels like the pressure is at the bottom pushing up.
Who was the lady that was deaf and blind, and famously overcame those? I can't think of her name. Her first word was water.
I once read an interview with her and she said that before she learned language she basically didn't have any mental images or thoughts. Her mind was just raw emotion and mostly anger.
Once she picked up language she was able to think things through, and understand where she was in the world. I always found that fascinating, and your comment reminded me of it.
Who was the lady that was deaf and blind, and famously overcame those?
Might be Helen Keller, very famous deafblind activist. A quote from wikipedia kind of shows how hard communicating when senses are limited:
The next month, Keller made a breakthrough, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water". Writing in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, Keller recalled the moment:
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free!
Helen Keller
Yes, that's her. Thank you!
This gave me a bout of serious existential dread.