They’ll look in all the familiar rooms

[erika]

I realized tonight that I may very well have a rare neurological condition that has as of yet been unidentified.*

I cannot visualize anything.

(Visualization: The ability to form mental images in your "mind’s eye," retain or store them for future recall, or for synthesis into new mental images beyond your current or past direct experiences.)

Stealing from a page I found which Dan said:
Imagine a red square. Can you see it? I can't. I know intellectually what a red square is made of, but I can't see it unless one is in front of me.

Obviously, I may be totally excited/freaked over nothing. Maybe nobody can really visualize (although spr0cket claims she can, heh).

So OF COURSE my next step is to write a poll and find out how common this possible "syndrome" is among my lj friends.

(Please take this test to determine right-brain/left brain dominance first, unless you already know which side of your brain is dominant.)


[Poll #652144]

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by the way: how this came to me was that I started reading theferrett's livejournal as a link from the_xtina, and quite a few entries back he wrote about something whereupon someone else (ravenclawdrew) commented that Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek) was in Independence Day as the big haired scientist.

So I IM'd spr0cket and mused that I wonder if I have a borderline face recognition problem because of my inability to visualize.

Then she basically went 'wait, WHAT?' And I said "yeah, I didn't get that Mike Myers played Fat Bastard AND Austin Powers AND Dr Evil either." (Haha, laugh if you must.)

Then I googled "inability to visualize" and basically realized that there is NOTHING out there for that. There is nothing on Wikipedia, there is very little on Google. And sprocket suggested I do a poll to see if other people have the same issues.

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(Another page I've found on this for further reading:
Somebody asks Google Answers about it. Salon Health & Body describes someone who writes in with the same problem as an isolated developmental disorder. A blog post about it. )

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Oh, and I found a page on some kooky visualization self-help guru who said:

An interesting point about those who "can't visualize," however. Many people have told me of this "limit" over the years and so I frequently ask them if they can remember the color of their first car. They ALWAYS remember. How is that possible unless they visualized the color? I have a hard time believing that they heard, felt, smelled or tasted the color. Didn't they have to see it to know what it was? Perhaps they need practice visualizing so they can develop this skill more fully."

Let me explain to you how I "see" things. Let's say you think about a fabric—plush, for example. You can think about it without actually feeling it in your hands like it was there, right? And you know what it would feel like if you were to have it in your hands.

You also know that plush feels differently than silk, I'm sure.

That's sort of what seeing colors or images is like for me. I can describe them, but I don't actually see them—I just know what they would look like IF I saw them. Just like you'd know what plush felt like if you felt it, and you can even describe it, even though when you describe it you're not actually feeling the sensation of the fabric plush at the time.

Now do you think that it's impossible to recall something, even something visual, without actually experiencing it?

Gah, that guy is an idiot.

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Feedback is totally welcomed.

*(I'm completely serious. Although I'm not sure if it's rare, the fact that there's almost nothing (and I mean a mere 3 appropriate results) when I googled it is a huge clue. Although it could just mean that everyone has problems with this and I'm totally overreacting.)

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Edited to add: On an 'OH THAT'S WHY' note, I have just realized that this is why I hate puzzles.

Comments

[spr0cket.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be really interested in how other people respond to this. :P

[soshesays.livejournal.com]

I, uh, think this is weird. Because I can visualize things, but I am overwhelmingly left-brained according to that quiz (3:15). But then again, I frequently find myself telling people, "I can't tell you what it looks like or where it is, but I'd recognize it if I saw it." I don't know, whatev.

How would you describe a color to someone who had never seen it?

[erika]

Like a blind person?

[nightingayle.livejournal.com]

It's simply the way your brain processes things. You don't learn visually. We had a whole workshop on it at work, and I was ASTOUNDED to discover that I don't process or remember anything auditory. It made a pile of things make total sense, like my phobia of the phone, or the fact that if I'm not watching a singer's hands or a guitarist's fingers, it's all just noise, for instance. The woman giving the workshop said that kids with an auditory disability (which I am leaning towards) will read lips to help understand what people are saying, which I DO ALL THE TIME. It was crazy.

Anyway, there's a wee test you can take to see what your learning strong points are.
Check it out. (http://www.cdedstudents.com/html_asp_files/students_center/tutorialcentre/LearningStyles.pdf)

It seems as though you likely have a "visual disability." Obviously, i'm not an expert at ALL, but this is the first thing I thought of when I read your entry.

I have information relevant to it but I can't access it from home, but if you google "visual perception learning disability" or "visual memory learning disability" you will find a million things. You might want to put "adult" in there, although it may or may not make a difference.

It's likely not a disability for you in that it doesn't affect much, same as my auditory "disability" (which, I don't think either of us has a real DISABILITY) doesn't really affect me. However, it could help you understand and not feel like a freak :)

Some good info:
http://www.allaboutvision.com/parents/learning.htm
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/process_deficit/visual_auditory.html


Anyway, I hope that helps! And maybe I'm totally wrong! But you can try some of my words in google to see if you find something different from what you found before.

[nightingayle.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'm reading my friends list backward, and in your last post (oh, hug!), you said your memory is so bad you have problems functioning...... perhaps it's a disability after all? In which case, there's all kinds of help for you, grants and everything. Believe me, you can improve your memory.

[erika]

Although I love your theory and would be ecstatic if that were the case and I could simply point and say "oh yes, this is totally what my problem is"... I'm actually much more a visual learner than I am anything else.

I learn best by reading alone in a calm environment, love reading, don't like doing math in my head, and ironically am great at recognizing faces when I see them. I just can't call the image up like a photograph.

I think the key difference would be that I have no problem recognizing anything I've seen before. I also don't have any of the symptoms listed on either of the two pages you linked at the bottom of your comment. (aside from needing glasses, which I got at age 8)

So while I can understand that this could be lumped in with learning disabilities and different styles of learning, it feels both more and less than that.

[erika]

My memory hasn't always been quite this bad, and it's definitely gotten worse. BUT! I have never had a very good memory, and I'm not sure if the ability to visualize is one of the reasons or not. Never having had it, you see.

And if it's a known disability, I wish I could come up with a name for it!

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer the last 2 questions as I use both my right and left halves-of-brain and none of the last options summed up how I felt. I can visualise objects without any difficulty, but I can't do faces. I can neither remember faces NOR names; instead I rely on someone having a distinguishing characteristic in order for me to recognise them. I try to rely on body language for my dinstinguishing characteristics (ie how someone moves), because you can dye your hair but you can't change how you walk into a room. To remember names I rely on mnemonics, but I'm still not great at remembering them as names aren't very important to me, so I only really try to remember them in order to be polite.

I stink at recognising people in photos.

[erika]

You probably have face-blindness (prosopagnosia). I actually have ran into a lot of stuff about it, and what you just described are the classic symptoms. (Obviously IANAD.)

[soshesays.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[nightingayle.livejournal.com]

I don't see what you said contradicting anything - reading is visual-verbal, which is separate. But in any case, it's YOUR brain :) It was just a thought, a line of research.

[soshesays.livejournal.com]

Or, I suppose, someone in The Giver.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine people's faces either. I can get specific features - an eye, or a lip. But not the whole thing.

However, I'm unusually good at visuo-spacial tasks and other "normally male" stuff, which is probably why I'm in a "normally male" job.

[erika]

I don't think it's possible to explain color to someone who hasn't seen it, dude.

Could you?

[erika]

Oh, I agree it's an avenue to explore. It's just that I don't fit any of the other symptoms listed under visual learning disabilities. In other words, my visual-perceptual speed, visual spatial abilities, visual-motor integration and even my visual memory are all fine--I can RECALL the stuff I see, like the facts in a passage of text, I just can't recall a mental photograph of said passage of text. I can tell you what mountains look like, I just don't see a mountain while I'm doing it.

It's a hard difference, so you're helping me by showing me what I don't feel is accurate. If that makes sense, and I truly don't mean to be condescending or brusque.

[proemial.livejournal.com]

Re: auditory crap. Took me my third try into university before realizing why I just couldn't "get" lectures. Then I took my entire degree through distance ed/self-directed and it all fit together.

Odd, since I play violin. But I'm always just watching my teacher's fingers on the violin.

[soshesays.livejournal.com]

No, I was just wondering because of the whole "That's sort of what seeing colors or images is like for me. I can describe them" thing, but I am a moron and misread that. Moving on.

[kyra.livejournal.com]

I remember reading a book as a kid wherein a girl did that very thing for a blind guy who lived in the same building. She introduced him to colors with different sensory experiences - took him outside and told him gold was the feel of sunshine on the face, gave him some horseradish and told him "red is fire on the tongue" and so forth.

[kyra.livejournal.com]

If you're concerned that this might be a problem rather than a difference of terminology, may I recommend that you see a specialist? While it may be conforting to find other people out on the internet who have similar perceptions of sensory experiences, we're not necessarily qualified to give you the feedback necessary for a diagnosis.

[erika]

True, but that's more from a synesthetic point of view. We all have connotations of colors but to actually describe the color red, not the emotions it evokes or what it feels like, to someone who had never seen ANY color is, I believe, impossible.

[erika]

I mean I don't visualize them when I describe them.

I mean, I could describe them along the lines of "pink is when you add some white to red" but I don't think that would help someone who hadn't seen ANY color.

[erika]

I can't imagine that there would be anything a neurologist can do for me, besides study me, but I have already emailed one nearby, actually.

Mainly this entry exists because I'm limited as to what I can do with real people (as opposed to LJ people!) at 3 in the morning on a weekend.

And I'm not really sure if it's a problem, it's more just a burning curiosity. Like I mentioned above, I'd probably have a better memory if I could visualize things, but the lack appears irreparable.

[quixotic.livejournal.com]

hi there.. wandered over here from faceblind. i'm on there, but i'm not certain if i have mild faceblindness, or something more general, like this.. like you. i have a lot of trouble recognizing people, but i can recognize people sometimes. i can't visualize their faces though, or really anything. (i do dream in images, but not daydream -- i daydream conversations). i have one other friend i've spoken with who claims to be similar, and a lot of other friends who think it's totally weird when i describe it to them.

i think that you and i are very similiar if not the same in this area -- but i can remember what color my first car was. i can remember it because i encoded in textually and auditorally -- the same way that i know it was a 1989 chevrolet cavalier and that it was boxy. i memorized its description.

-a

[zannah.livejournal.com]

Ha! I was totally going to mention face-blindedness (though I didn't know there was a community for it).

Oddly enough, while I am highly visual (I can visualise things without even closing my eyes), I have a *huge* facial recognition issue. It's caused some problems in the past when I've failed to recognise people I've known for quite some time. :) I do okay if I see a person and remember what they are wearing (and they are still wearing it when I see them next), but aside from family and very close friends and immediate co-werkers, I have difficult time with facial recognition. I read an article about a man who was face-blind several years ago - it was extremely enlightening, IMO.

[nightingayle.livejournal.com]

Not at all condescending! And any way to help is good!