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Old 08-20-2017, 09:09 AM   #1
JCurwen3
 
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Default No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

So I'm wondering if this is just a quirk or more than that.

I have come to realize that I'm essentially "blind inside" - I have no visual memory and can't visualize anything. I used to just assume this was normal but I've come to the conclusion that there is something different, probably about my visual cortex, that makes me incapable of being able to picture anything in my head.

Quirk or not, what penalties might be associated with this, and in what situations? I know at least one situation, which is that I absolutely can't draw from memory, needing to be able to see actively my subject (either live or from pictures).
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Old 08-20-2017, 09:14 AM   #2
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

Just drawing? My first thought would be inability to visually identify anything, due to lacking any visual memory to which a newly-seen object can be matched for comparison.
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Old 08-20-2017, 10:10 AM   #3
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

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Just drawing? My first thought would be inability to visually identify anything, due to lacking any visual memory to which a newly-seen object can be matched for comparison.
Well when I see things or people I've seen before, there is an "ah ha!" moment when I do recognize those things or people. But it always feels like seeing those things for the first time. I mostly can't see memories in my mind. Instead of visualizing things from my memory, my mind conjures up descriptive words for those things.

Incidentally, although I'm not entirely sure they're connected, I have real problems with shapes, geometry (even though I'm good at math and can work with geometry via algebraic solutions), directions, and maps. With directions, like identifying left and right, I always have to do a little trick where I flex or do something with my good (right) hand, and then I go "oh, okay, that way is right!" or vice versa. Pretty annoying.
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Old 08-20-2017, 11:38 AM   #4
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

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Originally Posted by JCurwen3 View Post
With directions, like identifying left and right, I always have to do a little trick where I flex or do something with my good (right) hand, and then I go "oh, okay, that way is right!" or vice versa. Pretty annoying.
I have the same issue with directions. I just hold out my hands with my index finger pointing forward and the thumbs pointing in. The the one that makes an L is the left.

That's because if I was told "Flex your right arm"... I'd have to figure out which one was the right arm.
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Old 08-20-2017, 11:49 AM   #5
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

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I have the same issue with directions. I just hold out my hands with my index finger pointing forward and the thumbs pointing in. The the one that makes an L is the left.
Then you don't have left-right reversal with letters (like the backward E on some eye charts)?
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Old 08-20-2017, 01:50 PM   #6
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

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Just drawing? My first thought would be inability to visually identify anything, due to lacking any visual memory to which a newly-seen object can be matched for comparison.
Drawing from memory is hard for everyone - that's a skill that needs a lot of practice and training to get more than the "House is a box with a triangle on top and a rectangle with a cross in it for a window" kind of artwork. Ask a bunch of people to draw a bicycle and everyone can handle the "two circles with a thing to sit on and things to hold" parts and can put pedals approximately in the right place, but the frame can be really cryptic - I think it's around half of random people get confused. They don't manipulate the frame, so they don't really know what it looks like.

Image/object recognition and visualization/visual memory are different things, involving different pathways in the brain. That's why a person who has never seen anything (blind from birth) can still visualize objects and draw pictures of them, although a person who is blind from birth has a grasp grasp of perspective quite different from a person who has been sighted for at least part of their life (their "perspective" is from touching with two hands that can move all around an object, not from looking with two fixed eyes).

I've got a bit of brain damage (really low intensity, but in lots of little places) and part of it is in the visual processing pathways, part of it is in my visual memory, part of it is in my linguistic memory, and part of it is in my ability to visualize. When my brain is behaving, everything functions basically normally, but I can have one-or-many of these things fail when my brain is not behaving, and the failures really highlight the different parts involved.

Sometimes I just can't recognize faces. This is different from recognizing other things - there's a specialized bit of your brain specifically for recognizing faces. My general "recognize stuff" bits always work acceptably, it's just the "recognize faces" bits that don't work.

Sometimes I cannot grok spatial relationships between things in my head - I can retrace my path exactly, but I can't figure out how to "cut a corner" to take a shortcut from point A to point B without a map. People trying to explain to me how things are arranged get frustrated. I have a lot of trouble with understanding instructions on how to rotate things.

Sometimes I can't pull up a mental picture of what a thing looks like - this makes it really hard to find things because when you don't know what it looks like, you can't do the "Is it bigger than a breadbox? Then I don't need to look in places substantially smaller than a breadbox." process of elimination trick. This interacts badly with my problems with spatial visualization when I can't really process how much space there is behind things when I can't see that space, leaving me sometimes unaware that there is a "behind" (or underneath or whatever). And then I don't look there, and I don't find whatever I'm looking for because of course there it is.

Sometimes I can visualize a thing and I know what it's used for and how to use it, but I can't name it. That makes it hard for me to ask someone else for one. This is really frustrating in shops.

They're all different ways for your brain to break down and fail you.
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Old 08-20-2017, 06:38 PM   #7
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

It's not about the problem in clinical terms, but how much it disadvantages a character when including coping mechanisms.
I was very bad with recognizing facial expressions, and all sorts of "obvious" social rules growing up and well into my 20s. But all my invented coping mechanisms and in essence learning such things as a skill separate from instinct means that it's not that much of a problem now in my 40s.

So this mental imagery problem would be a quirk for some, but severe disadvantage for others.
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Old 08-21-2017, 12:04 AM   #8
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

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Then you don't have left-right reversal with letters (like the backward E on some eye charts)?
No. I just can never intuitively remember which is right and which is left. I did start to get it down when I was in ROTC (all that marching and drilling, it becomes muscle memory to respond appropriately to shouted orders), but I've lost all that in the intervening 20+ years.

I also have no capacity to intuitively remember north, south, east, or west. I have to either look at where the sun is and figure it out (okay, that's really not that hard), or (no sun to guide by, or I don't know if it's before or after noon) I have to mentally trace a route back to my house, and then figure out what direction I'm facing in relation to it. Then I can determine if I'm facing north, south, east, or west.


If I was in in a city that wasn't Orlando, FL... I'd be screwed on that last one. But that's also why I have several compasses in my various kits.
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Old 08-21-2017, 01:27 AM   #9
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

Dude, I literally got lost walking in a straight line. I walked my GF to the nearby bus stop, and I would swear in court that it was an L path. Nope, straight line.
Mental maps are quite different from ability to mentally visualize.
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Old 08-21-2017, 02:22 AM   #10
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Default Re: No Visual Memory / Can't Visualize / "Blind Inside"

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Mental maps are quite different from ability to mentally visualize.
Agreed. I have a hard time picturing faces, but maps? Maps are easy.


Just don't ask me which direction is left or right when my hands are full.
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