Does it affect memory/recalling memory?

Can relate to everything you’re saying there, especially when it came to Maths exams. Passed my O’Grade with flying colours as all formulae where provided, failed my Higher (Scottish qualifications) misserably as you had to commit all formulae & proofs to memory.
Sounds to me that you probably have SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory) as well.

I have a fairly high degree of aphantasia, while my daughter is hyperphantasia, a difference that we have only recently discovered. So, we have been having interesting conversations. There are a number of consistent memory recall differences between us, in addition to her vivid images and my near lack of them. She has vivid autobiographical memory while mine is sketchy at best. I am a terrible speller while she has no problem. I have never been able to learn a foreign language. She learned French and Italian in college, and then became interested in Russian literature in her senior year and in a couple of years learned Russian (considered one of the most difficult languages) well enough to be teaching it as a grad student at Columbia University. My poor ability to memorize and remember has not hindered me as I have a PhD in Economics and I had a successful career as a corporate strategy consultant. Looking back, I remember often arriving for meetings not remembering what they were about… BUT being able to very quickly figure out what was going on. Thinking about it I was/am extremely good at figuring out all sorts of things, which I suspect is in part some sort of back door memory recall process, which some people might call intuition. And right now my intuition keeps telling me that the aphantasia flag is signalling a host of past memory/behavior issues that all seem to be falling into place.

Yes that is quite common for episodic autobiographical memory to be down in people with aphantasia which is consistent with the idea that this sort of memory taps into visual imagery to a greater extent than some other types of memory. I think several studies have objectively demonstrated such a pattern although the reduced autobiographical memory is definitely short of what people would typically consider as “amnesia”. Your observation about struggling with maths equations or other sorts of semantic memory is interesting though as this typically is thought to rely on imagery to a lesser extent (although one could argue that imagery is used specifically for recollecting the equations. As far as I’m aware no one has looked at the ability to recollect semantic memory in the form of exam or exam like content so far in aphantasia so we don’t know if it is a common trait or not at the moment.

i have the same problem. now i am struggling with a course that i have to remember detailed section numbers of regulations for recall in closed book exams. i am worried i will not be able to complete the entry to practice exam. I was looking into memory aids but most things are based on visulaization. I am looking for memory aids / strategies to build memory that would be effective for someone with aphantasia. I only found out it was a thing a few years ago. My family can visualize very well and i am jealous but i thought maybe it was a 50/50 thing. When i found out only 2-4% of people can’t visualize i was shocked!

I discovered aphantasia, and identified myself as that 1% who has no imagery at all, just a few weeks ago. Talk about doors opening to greater awareness and new questions! Along with no clear images I’ve had very minimal recall of my life’s events – big, small, wonderful or painful. There’s never been any discrepancy. My academic life was abysmal. Now I wonder how do we know to what degree lack of imagery affects our degree of recall? And one more thing, although I can’t image the inside of my own home, I am in the top 5% linguistically! I thought of that because many of you express yourselves very, very well and IMO well above average. Interesting… Your thoughts?

I have aphantasia and no executive function; I use distraction to keep myself functioning. First Person Shooters are the best distractions for me, then reading (I skip most of the adjectives, duh! – they don’t add much to my reading). I sit here reading this site knowing that I have 3 years worth of taxes to finish (I will get refunds but…). I am not sure but I don’t think I ever did any homework in school (I graduated 52 – that sounds good but number 53 was held back, so I was not the worst student in my senior class of 53 ). I am 76 and retired but now I have some idea of why things were so difficult for me.
I have SDAM so I only have episodic memories plus I did a lot of acid in the 1970s and my dreams are action/adventure (I used to nap a lot b/c my dreams were so exciting) – I do not know if I dream in images but I do not remember them as images. The hallucinations on acid were really cool but I have no way to express them.
Sigh!

This must be one of the effects of aphantasia… it all clicked for me and you are literally discribing my life. I just thought I had memory issues for real. This has to be why! Would love to connect to discuss because I have talked to people and they remember soo much since they were kids. And you really resonated with me when you said you can only recall things because maybe a picture you saw and you just “know” about it that it happened but cannot remember or really recall details and definitely can’t imagine it.. even though it was your past. I have friends tell me stories that literally are about my life and I’m listening as if I’ve never heard this before. Obviously I can’t picture what they are saying but I can listen to the story and I’m just like wow cool. They always ask if I remember and I’m just like maybe.. kinda or naw not really but kinda know…