Aphantasia and Mathematics
1 min readByAspen Thompson
I find myself at a bit of a loss or what my generation might call a skill issue. One of the strengths of aphants, is logical and conceptual reasoning. Many people with aphantasia find they are good at math. While I find that the sciences have always been a tad easier for me; math has eluded my grasp. Which I find frustrating because, science will always need math.
I believe my struggle is because, from a young age I was being told to process the equations and formulas visually. When I had the formula and a piece of paper it was easy, but mental math was insufferable. The concepts made sense, but I lacked the sufficient means to execute the algorithms mentally because my brain was trying to do what it couldn't, visualize. Any thoughts?
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Antonella Kauffman•recently•edited
I was always good at math and I don't visualize it. My mind narrates it though as if some aspect of it is creating an image or as if I was writing it in my mind but cannot see it. My mind can narrate motion better than static images which is why I'm describing it as writing. That ability also makes it easier for me to hold onto different parts of a problem or test out different solutions in my mind in search of a better one. I can also do this better with my eyes open than closed. If I close my eyes I just see black which is very distracting. So while I don't actually see things, my mind narrates the process and the solutions. It's hard to articulate and it might be different for different people. Try different things to find out what works for you!
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Neal White•recently•edited
My aphantasia wasn't much of an issue for me in school. I was even on my high school math team.
Here are a couple of my main techniques: for physics, I used memorization: the first thing I did on a test was to write down the formulas in the margins. I only memorized the basic formulas and would then derive any other formulas as needed. Yes, that does waste precious time, but I usually was able to get a passing grade. For history, I would write down what the teacher said in class. Writing it down embedded it in my mind, so I could regurgitate it on tests.
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