12 Comments
User's avatar
🏳️‍⚧️ SAVING THE GWORLS 🏳️‍⚧️'s avatar

Amazing 🧡

Expand full comment
CW's avatar

Have you ever read Temple Grandin's biography, Thinking in Pictures?

Expand full comment
Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal)'s avatar

A long time ago...

Expand full comment
Pat D's avatar

I can believe that a very intelligent person (as you clearly are) with aphantasia could excel in logic,statistics,and many other areas of math.But were you as strong in ,say, differential geometry, topology, analysis? These require visualization, indeed,as do many "word problems" in even basic calculus ,and as does Physics. Did you notice any differences along these lines?

Expand full comment
Cathie Campbell's avatar

“Zeman claims normal people spend half their waking hours with wandering minds.” (Whew! Good to know!)

Expand full comment
Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal)'s avatar

I updated it to make clear he is citing a study -- I'll link to the study...

Expand full comment
Cathie Campbell's avatar

Great wordsmith article with “polyptoton” and “antimetabole”. I find I must fight AI’s insertions in order to correctly spell atypical words. Yesterday listened to you on the Cosmos panel and highly recommend it to your readers.

Expand full comment
Steven C. Edwards's avatar

What about audiation (the ability to "imagine" sounds or music)? We can't imagine music because it is not an image. Is hearing "Happy Birthday" in your head (no actual sound) like conjuring up internal pictures - or thinking in language?

Expand full comment
AMK's avatar

It would be fascinating to find out if this has any connection to the UNLV studies that found some people lack an interior monologue: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/hurlburt-heavey-2018.pdf

Expand full comment
Mathew Ingram's avatar

I don't want to insert myself here unnecessarily, but I am also aphantasic and as far as I can tell from my research, many with aphantasia also lack an internal monologue (as I do)

Expand full comment
Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal)'s avatar

Welcome to the club and we're all so different!

Expand full comment
AMK's avatar

This is all so fascinating!

Expand full comment