Robert Zenhausern

Does your inner voice sing, or do you hear someone else? How does this shape your thoughts compared to those who visualize?

How do you process thoughts without visual imagery? Is it like an internal conversation, or do you experience auditory imagination instead?

On “How did you first discover aphantasia?”

I was in the second grade and the teacher told the class to imagine something.  Everyone in the class was enthusiastic, but I saw nothing.I noted it and promptly forgot if for 30 years.  At that time I was a research psychologist and I mentioned to one of my grad students that I did not have visual imagery.  She was amazed.  "How can you think".  It was a turning point.  I had solid evidence that people think in different ways and I had a "clean slate" to start.  What do I do instead of imaging? I usually talk to myself as if giving a lecture in explanation.  If I am asked to describe my house, I have the spatial information even though I do not have the visual.  When you think in images, it is incredibly fast as one picture is worth a thousand words.  When you have solved the problems with imagery, you now have to deal with the fact that it takes 1000 words to describe one picture. I do not have auditory imagery either.  When I think, using words, they are the words I am actively using.  I do not hear myself.  If that seems confusing, think about times when a "song runs through your head".  Who is doing the singing?  If you hear the singer, are you more likely to hear yourself when you think?If you are doing the singing, do you think by talking to yourself? I know there are people who say their thoughts are in written words.  I do not have imagery for words either, so I cannot respond. Most of the things I write are questions because they are questions we have not asked.  Here is anotherCan you hear the printed word?