Thinking in Text vs. Images or Abstracts

[Cerelict]

How do you primarily think and organize information?

[ouronis]

Is what a symptom of a serious problem?

I think in all three, but mostly in abstracts, or brain feelings, as I like to call them. Sometimes I think in mine and other people's voices too, which I guess is a subset of text.

[ashlesha]

Text = voice?

A mix of all three go on in my head, but when I'm putting effort into thinking, its primarily voice.

[summerprincess]

Thinking in images is often a sign of autism. I pretty much think the opposite way which is 100% stream of consciousness words. And yeah text = voice bc if you're imagining the text spelled out that would be an image and fall into the other category

[Skepsis]

They are all essential to human thought. Words help form the images, ideas, impressions, and abstractions being generated into something more tangible, which gives a substrate for more intangibles to grow out of, which will require even more words for thought expansion and abstractions. As it is with an infant, the abstract impressions precede the language.

[Aylen]

I use all three. Visual thinking is highly symbolic I would think. I am not sure how many pure visual thinkers there would be in the general population but I think it shows on one of the links. I use stream of thought while writing but that stream comes from processing the visual and abstract. That is why I have to sleep on something to fully grasp it sometimes which is common in most introverted intuitive types? Even if they don't remember the dreams. It process the abstract while I sleep then when I wake I have the right words. This is more for things I don't grasp immediately though. I can go a while without a verbal thought in my head but I get visuals and vague feelings. I get those "brain feelings" too but I refer to them as "knowing" without words but feeling could work too, like ouro said. It could be different in a base Ne user since it is extroverted but at the core probably not much difference. I don't think thinking in images is a often a sign of autism since the people I know who do it, are not autistic so if that is your primary don't go diagnosing yourself. I am not autistic and never even considered it I could be.

"The soul never thinks without a mental image" -Aristotle

So whatever you got, work it.

Einstein first described his intuitive thought processes at a physics conference in Kyoto in 1922, when he indicated that he used images to solve his problems and found words later (Pais, 1982). Einstein explicated this bold idea at length to one scholar of creativity in 1959, telling Max Wertheimer that he never thought in logical symbols or mathematical equations, but in images, feelings, and even musical architectures (Wertheimer, 1959, 213-228). Einstein's autobiographical notes reflect the same thought: "I have no doubt that our thinking goes on for the most part without the use of symbols, and, furthermore, largely unconsciously" (Schilpp, pp. 8-9). Elsewhere he wrote even more baldly that "[n]o scientist thinks in equations" (Infeld, 1941, 312).

Anyone in science education reading this?!

Einstein only employed words or other symbols (presumably mathematical) -- in what he explicitly called a secondary translation step -- after he was able to solve his problems through the formal manipulation of internally imagined images, feelings, and architectures. "I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in wordsafterwards," he wrote (Wertheimer, 1959, 213; Pais, 1982).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ic-imagination

GENIUSES MAKE THEIR THOUGHTS VISIBLE. The explosion of creativity in the Renaissance was intimately tied to the recording and conveying of a vast knowledge in a parallel language; a language of drawings, graphs and diagrams — as, for instance, in the renowned diagrams of daVinci and Galileo. Galileo revolutionized science by making his thought visible with diagrams, maps, and drawings while his contemporaries used conventional mathematical and verbal approaches.
Once geniuses obtain a certain minimal verbal facility, they seem to develop a skill in visual and spatial abilities which give them the flexibility to display information in different ways. When Einstein had thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including diagrammatically. He had a very visual mind. He thought in terms of visual and spatial forms, rather than thinking along purely mathematical or verbal lines of reasoning. In fact, he believed that words and numbers, as they are written or spoken, did not play a significant role in his thinking process.
- See more at: http://www.creativitypost.com/create....5pPyBWJN.dpuf

Spatial-temporal reasoning and spatial visualization ability[edit]

Main articles: Spatial–temporal reasoning and Spatial visualization ability


Spatial-temporal reasoning is the ability to visualize special patterns and mentally manipulate them over a time-ordered sequence of spatial transformations.^[1] Spatial visualization ability is the ability to manipulate mentally two- and three-dimensional figures.^[1]


Spatial-temporal reasoning is prominent among visual thinkers as well as among kinesthetic learners (those who learn through movement, physical patterning and doing) and logical thinkers (mathematical thinkers who think in patterns and systems) who may not be strong visual thinkers at all.^[1]


Photographic memory[edit]

Main article: Eidetic memory


Eidetic memory (photographic memory) may co-occur in visual thinkers as much as in any type of thinking style as it is a memory function associated with having vision rather than a thinking style.^{[citation needed]} Eidetic memory can still occur in those with visual agnosia, who, unlike visual thinkers, may be limited in the use of visualization skills for mental reasoning.^{[citation needed]}


Psychologist E.R Jaensch states that eidetic memory apart of visual thinking has to do with eidetic images fading between the line of the after image and the memory image.^{[citation needed]} A fine relationship may exist between the after image and the memory image, which causes visual thinkers from not seeing the eidetic image but rather drawing upon perception and useful information.^{[citation needed]} Individuals diagnosed with agnosia, may not be able to perform mental reasoning.^{[citation needed]}


Learning styles[edit]

Main article: Learning styles


The acknowledgement and application of different cognitive and learning styles, including visual, kinesthetic, musical, mathematical and verbal thinking styles, are a common part of many current teacher training courses.^{[citation needed]} Those who think in pictures have generally claimed to be best at visual learning.^{[citation needed]}


Empirical research shows that there is no evidence that identifying a student's "learning style" produces better outcomes. There is significant evidence that the widespread "meshing hypothesis", the assumption that a student will learn best if taught in a method deemed appropriate for the student's learning style is invalid.^[8][9] Well-designed studies "flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis".^[8]


Concurrency with Dyslexia and Autism[edit]

Dyslexia[edit]

Main article: Dyslexia
Research suggests that dyslexia is a symptom of a predominant visual/spatial learning.^[10] Morgan used the term 'word blindness,' in 1896. Hinselwood expanded on 'word blindness' to describe the reversing of letters and similar phenomenon in the 1900s.^{[citation needed]} Orton suggested that individuals have difficulty associating the visual with the verbal form of words, in 1925.^{[citation needed]} Further studies, using technologies (PET and MRI), and wider and varied user groups in various languages, support the earlier findings.^{[citation needed]} Visual-spatial symptoms (dyslexia,Developmental coordination disorder, Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) and the like) arise in non-visual and non-spatial environments and situations; hence, visual/spatial learning is aggravated by an education system based upon information presented in written text instead of presented via multimedia and hands-on experience.


Autism[edit]

See also: Autism and Nonverbal learning disorder


Visual thinking has been argued by Temple Grandin to be an origin for delayed speech in people with autism.^[11] It has been suggested that visual thinking has some necessary connection with autism.^{[citation needed]} Functional imaging studies on people with autism have been given support to the hypothesis that they have a cognitive style that favors the use of visuospatial coding strategies.^[12]

The other day, a retired psychology professor told me something startling about himself. He had no mental imagery. Nothing at all. No pictures in the head. No memory for tunes. No ability to imagine bodily actions. Certainly no ability to conjure up a smell or taste.

Once or twice in his life he had experienced the brief flash of a mental image (which is how he came to realise what he was missing). But generally nothing. He couldn't even recall scenes from his childhood or the faces of his family. When I probed him with questions about what he had for breakfast and the colour of his front door, he gave confident answers, but said he still had no pictures in his head. Verbal replies that "seemed right" simply popped into his thoughts.

Of course, he said, no one believes him when he tells them about this lack of imagery. And he was right. I didn't either.

Mental imagery is a tantalising subject; so central to our thought processes and yet so elusive to describe or research. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject. But the explanation that makes the most sense to me was put forward in the 1970s by the Cornell University psychologist, Ulric Neisser. He said imagination was really just sensory anticipation by another name. A mental image is the result of preparing to see or hear or feel something - and then not having the actual thing present to the senses. Memories are used to drive the brain's perceptual apparatus into a state of high expectation, an expectation so vivid that it becomes a surrogate experience.

The brilliance of this explanation is that not only does it tie imagination to something with a clear evolutionary purpose - the general need for brains to predict events in the world - but it also shows why the images themselves might grade from faint inklings and vague premonitions to full-strength, explicit, pictures in the head.

The cortex, with its hierarchical organisation and heavy back-projections between each "rung" of processing, can be driven both ways. The same neural machinery can be driven bottom-up by sensations, or top-down by ideas. As neuroimaging has revealed, picturing a letter or some other target shape can cause a projection of neural activity all the way back down to the primary visual cortex. So the theory goes that the strength of our images depends upon how far back across the sensory hierarchy we manage to push a particular wave of anticipation.

For example, imagine a rhinoceros. That is, ask yourself what it would be like to be just about to see a rhinoceros. You will probably start with a vague feeling of being ready for a rhinoceros type experience - a vigilant, but also oriented, state. Next a concrete image should swim into view. Perhaps a mental snapshot of a dusty-backed rhino standing in the African scrub. You would begin by rousing areas of the temporal lobe with general knowledge about rhinos. Then this would tug on neurons back across the visual pathways until a full-blown image was created.

There is plenty of research to suggest that there is great individual variation in the vividness and stability of such anticipatory images. Some people - like my professor friend - can't seem to get past the initial vague inkling stage. They can't push an expectation to the point where it grows rich in sensory detail. At the other end of the scale, there are those who claim hallucinogenic-strength mental images. These people often have "photographic" memories and are highly hypnotisable. Most of us lie somewhere between these two extremes. Perhaps this natural variation has something to do with the density of a person's cortical back-projections or some other such neurological mechanism.

But regardless, if mental imagery is really anticipation, a basic brain function, then everybody should have imagery of at least the inklings and stirrings kind, even if they might not enjoy full-blown pictures in the head or music in their ears.

My psychology professor admitted this was probably true. When he was answering questions about front doors or breakfasts, he was aware of a background sense of orientation - what he called a state of conceptual-emotive preparation - from out of which the answers sprang. But still, wasn't it surprising that such preparation didn't bear any perceptual fruit at all?

Changing subject, he then told me of a friend who had "kinda fried his brains" on drugs and now claims to see a hundred internal imagery screens at once, all with a different subject and in full colour animation. Well now neither of us knew what to make of the truth of that one.


Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/thread...-works.459910/

 

WHAT ARE CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT THINKING?

Abstract thinking is a level of thinking about things that is removed from the facts of the “here and now”, and from specific examples of the things or concepts being thought about. Abstract thinkers are able to reflect on events and ideas, and on attributes and relationships separate from the objects that have those attributes or share those relationships. Thus, for example, a concrete thinker can think about this particular dog; a more abstract thinker can think about dogs in general. A concrete thinker can think about this dog on this rug; a more abstract thinker can think about spatial relations, like “on”. A concrete thinker can see that this ball is big; a more abstract thinker can think about size in general. A concrete thinker can count three cookies; a more abstract thinker can think about numbers. A concrete thinker can recognize that John likes Betty; a more abstract thinker can reflect on emotions, like affection.

Another example of concrete thinking in young children is a two or three year old who thinks that as long as he stays out of his bedroom, it will not be bed time. In this case, the abstract concept of time (bedtime) is understood in terms of the more concrete concept of place (bedroom). The abstract idea of bedtime comes to mean the concrete idea of being in my bedroom.

Another example that applies to two or three year olds is the following. One of the favorite Dr. Seuss books is Green Eggs and Ham, which ends with the narrator changing his mind from rejecting green eggs and ham under any circumstances to trying them and actually liking them. At a concrete level of understanding, the story is about a stubborn person changing his mind. At a more abstract level of understanding, it is about people in general being capable of modifying their thoughts and desires even when they are convinced that they cannot or do not want to do so. This more abstract level of understanding can be appreciated by two and three year old children only if the higher level of meaning comes out of a discussion of the book with a more mature adult. At older ages and higher levels of thinking, this same process of more mature thinkers facilitating higher levels of abstraction in less mature thinkers characterizes the process of teaching abstract thinking. For example, this is how great philosophers, like Socrates and Plato, taught their pupils how to think abstractly.

An example of concrete versus abstract thinking in adolescence is the following. A concrete thinking adolescent can recognize that a good strategy in football is to make maximal use of the team’s most talented players. An abstract thinking adolescent can recognize that this strategy in football is the same as using ones cognitive strengths in studying for an exam. In general, abstract thinkers are able to perceive analogies and relationships that others may not see and thereby understand higher levels of abstraction.

The term abstraction also applies to uses of language. Abstract language is said to include terms that refer to entities other than physical objects and events, for example, “justice” and “freedom” as opposed to terms that refer to actual physical things, like “chair” and “car”. Abstract language also includes indirect uses of language, such as metaphors and figures of speech. For example, a concrete thinker would interpret “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones” to refer literally to breakable panes of glass. An abstract thinker, in contrast, would understand that the figure of speech means that people who have faults of their own should not criticize others. One should be careful, however, not to equate metaphor with abstract. Metaphors that were well understood before the injury (e.g., “Go take a hike”) may be just as concrete and easy to understand as their literal equivalents (“Please leave”). Sometimes metaphors come to be so commonly used and easy to understand that we forget that they are metaphors, like “He’s a barrel of laughs.”

The terms concrete and abstract are also used to suggest how practical or impractical an idea might be. In this sense, concrete ideas are those that have relevance to action (e.g., a recipe is concrete because it states how to cook a dinner; a differential equation is abstract because it is not tied to action in this way). This connection to action offers teachers and parents a way to make abstract ideas more concrete (and therefore more understandable) by showing their relevance to action. For example, chemistry can be connected to cooking or medicine; mathematics can be connected to construction. These connections with practical activity help concrete thinkers understand and appreciate abstract concepts.

Abstraction is a relative concept, related to the age of the child. For a two year old, “the day after tomorrow” is a highly abstract concept. For a college student, the day after tomorrow is relatively concrete, as opposed to highly abstract ideas like Heisenberg’s Indeterminancy Principle. And of course there are many degrees of abstraction between these two extremes. A major component of intellectual development is this process of gradually moving from extremely concrete thinking to increasingly abstract thinking in an ever increasing array of content areas.

To some extent, concrete and abstract are domain specific For example, for a mathematician, concepts like exponent and equation are second nature and relatively concrete in their meaning. However, that same mathematician might find concepts like value as used in political economy to be quite abstract. The reverse might be true for a political economist. Familiarity with the content in a given domain or speciality area dictates to some extent what will be considered concrete (and therefore easy to understand) and what will be considered abstract (and therefore hard to understand).
The ability to think concretely and abstractly is also associated with the ability to transfer what is learned from one context to another. For example, a student who is a reasonably abstract thinker might learn the organization of an essay in English class and then transfer that learning to her writing in social studies class. In contrast, a concrete thinker might need to be specifically taught in both classes.

WHY ARE CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT THINKING IMPORTANT FOR MANY STUDENTS AFTER TBI?

It is often said that individuals with TBI have difficulty with abstract levels of thinking. Frontal lobe injury is typically identified as the source of this difficulty. In students with brain injury, impaired abstract thinking is frequently associated with reduced foresight, judgment, insight, reasoning, creativity, problem solving, and mental flexibility.

Indeed, one popular theory of frontal lobe function maintains that many of the symptoms associated with injury to the frontal lobes can be grouped under the general heading “stimulus-bound”. In addition to the difficulties listed in the last paragraph, these individuals tend to be impulsive (directed in their actions by whatever is most salient in the here and now) and distractible (attending to events in the here and now, however irrelevant). They have difficulty with multi-step activities and in general have difficulty sustaining goal-directed activity. Within this theory, difficulties at the level of abstract thinking have the same underlying cause as impulsive behavior and difficulty modifying behavior as a result of experience.

There are other theories that account for difficulty with abstract thinking after TBI. However, most investigators agree that these difficulties are common and need to be attended to in rehabilitation and special education. Brain injury-related difficulties must, of course, be distinguished from normal developmental phenomena. In section 1 above, emphasis was placed on gradual development in childhood and adolescence from very concrete to increasingly abstract thinking. The concrete thinking of a child with brain injury may be developmentally normal, not a result of the injury.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN FEATURES OF TEACHING OR TRAINING THAT ARE IMPORTANT FOR STUDENTS WHO HAVE DIFFICULTY WITH ABSTRACT THINKING?

There are no simple solutions to the problem of concrete thinking. Indeed, many intelligent and successful adults would probably be classified as concrete thinkers in many areas of functioning. Despite their intelligence and many abilities, the likelihood that they could be trained to be theoretical physicists or philosophers is not large. With these common sense observations as background, staff and parents should enter the world of facilitating a student’s abstract thinking skills with modest expectations. (See Tutorials on Cognitive Rehabilitation, Attention, Memory and Memory Problems,Organization, Problem Solving, Transfer of Training, Conversation and Cognition.)

Understanding the Problem
As always, the first task for teachers and parents is to correctly understand the problem. The concrete thinking associated with brain injury can easily be misidentified as mental retardation or a general problem with learning. Students with abstract thinking problems might be reasonably effective learners and processors of information in select domains.

Having identified the difficulty with abstract thinking, parents and educators should become familiar with the compensations they can implement and procedures to gradually improve the student’s ability to think abstractly.

Environmental Compensations and Strategies

Competent and Sensitive Communication Partners: Knowing that a student is a concrete thinker, communication partners, including teachers and parents, should adjust their language accordingly. They should either avoid the use of language that is at too high a level of abstraction, or link abstract language with its concrete equivalent. For example, in encouraging a student to study hard, a parent might say, “You’ve got to give it your best shot – study real hard.” “Give it your best shot” is a metaphor that might be too abstract; “study real hard” is a literal or concrete equivalent.
Using Concrete Meanings to Support Comprehension of Abstract Concepts: When learning to add and subtract, first graders commonly rely on their fingers or other physical objects to represent the abstract numbers. The children’s conceptual transition into the world of abstract numbers is supported by the representation of those numbers in physical things that can be seen, held, and moved. Similarly, concrete thinking high school students might be able to understand an abstract social arrangement, like the caste system in India, by comparing it to social cliques they are familiar with in their school. Discussing similarities and differences between that which is unfamiliar and distant (i.e., abstract) and that which is familiar and close to home (i.e., concrete) is a valuable way to help students grasp the abstract concept.

Facilitating the Development of Abstract Thinking

There are no known “exercises” in abstract thinking that have the effect of turning a concrete thinker into an abstract thinker across domains of content. Sometimes practice with “brain teasers” or math and logic problems is suggested as a means to facilitate more abstract thinking. However, there is no evidence that practice of this sort enhances abstract thinking in a generalizable way. That is, a person can improve performance with brain teasers, math problems, and logic problems with no transfer to other domains of thinking.This failure of transfer is connected with the theme of “domain specificity” introduced earlier: a person can be a reasonably flexible and abstract thinker in one area (e.g., sports) and remain a concrete thinker in another area (e.g., literature). Therefore, attempts to facilitate increasingly abstract thinking should be made within all relevant academic areas (e.g., math, literature, science, social studies), without expecting that improvements in one area will yield improvements in another area. If possible, similar language and analogies should be used (e.g., by parents and teachers) across areas so as not to overwhelm students with too much information or too many comparisons. Schools should not expect that exercises in abstract thinking in a therapy context (e.g., a speech-language therapist using workbook exercises in abstract thinking) will transfer to other academic or social domains.

An alternative to “exercises” (like brain teasers) is to consider how the great thinkers of the past successfully taught their students how to think more deeply and abstractly, and how parents of young children facilitate the development of their child’s thought processes. In the latter case, there is considerable evidence showing that parents who think out loud with their children in ways suggested by the following list facilitate their child’s cognitive development. That is, parents who think out loud with their children in these ways have children who, other things being equal, develop organized, deep, and abstract thinking more quickly than comparable children who do not spend time with adults who think out loud with them in these ways. Teachers can play the same thinking-out-loud role with students. In effect, adults are taking children on as “apprentices in thinking” as they think out loud with the children. As adults think out loud with children, they should routinely seek feedback from the student to ensure that the adult’s “out-loud thinking” is being understood and perhaps even triggering the student’s thought processes.

• Think out loud with the student: Great teachers of thinking, like Socrates, spend much of their time thinking through issues with their students, leading them gradually to ever higher levels of understanding and abstraction. Similarly it is known that parents who think out loud in an organized and compelling way with their young children facilitate the child’s development of systematically higher levels of thinking, better organized thinking, and better problem solving. In home and classroom discussions, this out-loud thinking about important topics can be organized around the following thought processes:
  
  
  • searches for explanations (e.g., why and how questions)
    
  • searches for analogies to make the subject matter more understandable (e.g., “Let’s think about what this might be like in your life; what are other examples of this?”)
    
  • searches for alternative perspectives (e.g., “Are there other ways to think about this? How might other people think about this?”)
    
  • ways to organize the topic and make connections (e.g., “I think there are three separate issues here that we should consider in order”; “Let’s try to think about what this might be connected to”)
    
  • ways to evaluate (e.g., “How can we decide if this is a good thing or not?”)
    
  • ways to draw inferences (e.g., “If this is true, then what else must be true?”)
    
    
  
  
• Think out loud with the student about issues that are interesting and important: Issues that can be jointly thought about include topics from the student’s curriculum and school books as well as issues of personal importance. There are few issues that do not lend themselves to thinking about at a somewhat higher or more abstract level. These think-out-loud sessions can be lively and enjoyable dinner time conversations.
  
  
• Highlight the thinking process: In connection with abstract thinking, discussions with adolescents should highlight the words concrete and abstract (e.g., “That is how the story might be interpreted in a concrete way.... But now let me give you a more abstract understanding.”). Similarly, adults should not only explore explanations, but also explicitly describe this explanatory thought process as a way to derive explanations; they should not only explore analogies, but also explicitly describe this analogical thought process as a way to see connections; they should not only make organized connections, but also explicitly describe this organizational thought process as a way to become more organized in thinking. Talking about the thought processes and giving them a name facilitates an understanding of those thought processes, how to use them, and when to use them.
  
  
• Use illuminating and motivating analogies: Just as finger counting makes abstract numbers and arithmetic operations more concrete for six year old children, so also meaningful analogies make abstract material more concrete for older students. For example, in explaining the three branches of government to a concrete thinking high school student, a teacher might say, “When your parents create rules for you, they are functioning like the legislative branch of government. When they enforce those rules, they are functioning like the executive branch. When they try to resolve conflicts between you and your sister, they are functioning like the judicial branch.” This use of analogies connects the unfamiliar with the familiar, thereby making the abstract and unfamiliar more concrete and understandable.
  
  
• Use external supports as needed: In logic, Venn diagrams (overlapping circles) are used to “concretely” represent logical relationships among propositions. Similarly, a time line flow chart might be used to represent relationships among events in time. Models of the solar system are used to represent relationships among the sun, planets, and moons. When a product that needs assembly is opened, there is usually a sequence of pictures showing exactly how to put the object together. Each of these two- or three-dimensional representations of the organization of that which is represented can be considered a “map” – a concrete representation of more abstract relationships. The map guides one through unfamiliar territory and if you don’t know the territory, you need a map!
  
  
  
  • Other graphic organizers can be used to represent other relationships and organizational systems. [See Tutorials on Organization; Advance Organizers; Reading Comprehension; Written Composition.]
    
    
  
  
• Gradually remove the supports: Just as primary grade teachers try to gradually remove their students’ reliance on fingers and other objects as they do simple adding and subtracting problems, so also teachers at every level – and parents – should gradually remove the concrete supports that they use to facilitate the child’s more abstract thinking skills. For example, a graphic organizer with boxes and connecting arrows, used to represent narrative organization for elementary school students, might be gradually transformed into a simple outline for middle schoolers.

Specialists in cognitive development and intervention may be able to assist school staff in their attempts to facilitate development of abstract thinking in students with brain injury.


Written by Mark Ylvisaker, Ph.D. with the assistance of Mary Hibbard, Ph.D. and Timothy Feeney, Ph.D.

I love this subject so I don't feel so bad putting together the links once I realized op is banned.

My posting is based on stream of thought btw.

[Pookie]

Impressions, abstracts, motion/movement.

[Aylen]

The other day, a retired psychology professor told me something startling about himself. He had no mental imagery. Nothing at all. No pictures in the head. No memory for tunes. No ability to imagine bodily actions. Certainly no ability to conjure up a smell or taste.

Once or twice in his life he had experienced the brief flash of a mental image (which is how he came to realise what he was missing). But generally nothing. He couldn't even recall scenes from his childhood or the faces of his family. When I probed him with questions about what he had for breakfast and the colour of his front door, he gave confident answers, but said he still had no pictures in his head. Verbal replies that "seemed right" simply popped into his thoughts.

Of course, he said, no one believes him when he tells them about this lack of imagery. And he was right. I didn't either.

Mental imagery is a tantalising subject; so central to our thought processes and yet so elusive to describe or research. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject. But the explanation that makes the most sense to me was put forward in the 1970s by the Cornell University psychologist, Ulric Neisser. He said imagination was really just sensory anticipation by another name. A mental image is the result of preparing to see or hear or feel something - and then not having the actual thing present to the senses. Memories are used to drive the brain's perceptual apparatus into a state of high expectation, an expectation so vivid that it becomes a surrogate experience.

I woke up thinking about this and I started quizzing myself about objects around the house, colors of the walls, book covers, flowers in the yard, etc... As soon as I asked myself, what color is... what is the symbol on a certain book cover... what is the pattern on the door... I immediately saw the object, and got the verbal, so I am going to say the visual might have come a split second before the verbal, but there is no measurable time delay evident, so it could be simultaneous. With the book cover of Faust I saw the word "Faust" and saw the pattern but I could not describe it in words. I looked at the cover on the shelf but it was different than what I saw. I searched for different book covers for it online and I saw the one I imaged. It is in the garage in a box. Someone had left it to me so I have both copies but forgot until I did this exercise. The one in the garage is nicer so I am switching them out

This is the one on the shelf that didn't come to mind.




I asked myself to describe my yard then I saw the image in mind. I didn't consciously focus on any one detail since I saw the whole yard. Then I asked to see a detail in the yard but I visualized it in relation to nearby objects. I saw my car in the driveway then I filtered the surrounding objects so the car stood out. It was more colorful but as I write this and think of my car I see the whole again. It takes more effort to bring something into complete focus, to the exclusion of everything around it, even though the whole is vivid.

I imaged another book in the last place I remembered seeing it. That one was right. I use it often for reminders. I then told myself move that book mentally and I saw it on the book shelf instead of on the nightstand. I wondered what @Pookie meant by thinking in movement. I am not sure if this is what he meant but I visualized moving a couple objects through the air and tracking their movement until I placed them across the room.

If I am not paying attention I lose small things, like keys, all the time. I can panic if I need it immediately and can't find it in the place I thought I left it. Sometimes someone else moved it and I will tear apart a room to find one tiny flash drive, with important information, only to find it in the first place I looked. This happened the other day. I was thinking of a different flash drive so I was visually blind to the actual one I needed. I just didn't see it at all. I looked three times and I swear it wasn't there. When I remembered which one I actually needed I looked again and I could see it. It was pretty weird. Sometimes I ask my brother if he has something of mine and he says, "no" without thinking but then he comes back in a few minutes and says, "oh yeah I have it". By this time I am surrounded in chaos from looking and thinking I am going crazy. It might look crazy to others but I clean up the mess.

I have to use abstract thinking when conceptualizing something outside my experience. Is there any other way? If I am writing a story from scratch and have to develop character personalities or when I imagine what it is like to no longer be in my physical body. These thoughts are more free flowing images and feelings. There is a time delay but I couldn't say how long since they morph until some type of concrete idea comes out of it that I can write down. Sometimes stream of thought and other times I struggle to put what I am imagining in writing, so it comes in bursts of stream of thought. I need to edit after because it is not always in the right order. To be understood I have to try harder to put things in the right sequence. I know what the right sequence is but the reader will not. It takes a little bit more effort. I do better on tests without short time limits. If I have 4 hours to do a test I will rarely use the whole 4 but if I have 20 minutes I will stress.

I think overall I can see very clear images but they lack detail. Sometimes I can zero in on one small detail but it is hard. It has to be an outstanding feature on it's own. A specific symbol or something. This confirms that I am pretty much "big picture" across the board.

I had assumed everyone did that, to some degree, until I started reading some of these links so one thinking style is sort of foreign to me. I am not as skeptical as the guy in the article but I still wonder what it is like in their heads.

Anyway this was sort of a ramble because too many competing thoughts to write. Pretty much every thought has a visual or feeling tone and don't get me started on random images that don't appear to make any sense. I saw a newborn baby's footprint just now for no reason at all. Maybe it is symbolic of me sorting this out.

Edit: When I say "lack detail" I mean the kind of detail I can describe in detail. I can see fractals with multiple colors. I can't always explain my imagery to another.

[Pookie]

Oh by thinking in movement I meant that if I'm thinking about something it's never in a still. If I remember something via the impression it gave me, I'm remembering (as an example) someone saying it to me and my reaction to it instantly. The whole time period gets condensed into a bite. If I am trying to remember a what or when something happened, I track it by sequence. This led to that, that led to those, those led to it (Oh yeah! It was what I was looking for). Theres always a movement in the thoughts because I'm playing back a passage of time, or projecting a sequence forward that hasn't happened yet.

[Pookie]

Like the idea of Ni being so closely associated with "Time" makes perfect sense to be, even if it confuses or misleads about 95% of people who try to understand it. NiFe thinking and remembering things in terms of a sequence of impressions linking together is 100% dead on to me.

[Aylen]

Oh by thinking in movement I meant that if I'm thinking about something it's never in a still. If I remember something via the impression it gave me, I'm remembering (as an example) someone saying it to me and my reaction to it instantly. The whole time period gets condensed into a bite. If I am trying to remember a what or when something happened, I track it by sequence. This led to that, that led to those, those led to it (Oh yeah! It was what I was looking for). Theres always a movement in the thoughts because I'm playing back a passage of time, or projecting a sequence forward that hasn't happened yet.

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking that day that made me take it more literal but I do something similar. I was in some weird zone. Like @Herzy's did on her walk but in my own way.

I was reminded of this thread while reading the new Multiple Intelligence thread. I was wondering if what I do is visual/spatial or not after reading through it.

[Singu]

Um... I would use all. There are moments when I can't remember the words for something, but I remember the images. There are moments when I can't remember people's names, but I remember their faces.

I find that interesting... what does it exactly mean when you can't "come up with words" to describe something? What does it mean when you forget a word for something, but you know what it means? You already know what it means, you get the "feel" for it, but you can't describe it.

[Chae]

All of them, combined with music which tends to be the most present. I grew up basically glued to a radio so it's natural why I would often think using random lyrics or melodies.

[squark]

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking that day that made me take it more literal but I do something similar. I was in some weird zone. Like @Herzy's did on her walk but in my own way.

I was reminded of this thread while reading the new Multiple Intelligence thread. I was wondering if what I do is visual/spatial or not after reading through it.

I don't think I've read this thread before, but the link you quoted on concrete vs abstract thinking was one I was reading yesterday with something else in mind, so it's interesting to see it pop up here.
--
As for thread, I'll have to read it when my brain is working - a little too little sleep, but my memory works spatially. If I want to remember something I think of where it was when I saw/heard it, picture the things around it. I know where on a page in what part of a book I saw some information I want to find, and everything is organized in a spatial way for me based on where it is in relation to other things.

I suck with time however, and often jumble things up in time not knowing which came first. I'll relate things together, but the sequence may be entirely off - so Pookie's description is almost opposite from how my mind works. I tend to see things in stills rather than moving pictures, like freezing it in order to mentally look/walk around the scene, but time is all stacked on top of each other. I might not know whether something happened two weeks ago or three days ago or over a month ago without really thinking about it and relating it to other things, or whether something that happened two days ago happened before or after something that happened four days ago without using other tools to sort it out. Things don't just naturally sequence themselves for me the way he described happening for him.

Edit to add: The spatial vs temporal distinction is the difference between static and dynamic in socionics.

I haven't read everything in thread yet because I'm dog-tired, so maybe verbalizer vs visualizer was brought up as it fits with the thread title. Will probably get back to this later.

[Pallas]

I woke up thinking about this and I started quizzing myself about objects around the house, colors of the walls, book covers, flowers in the yard, etc... As soon as I asked myself, what color is... what is the symbol on a certain book cover... what is the pattern on the door... I immediately saw the object, and got the verbal, so I am going to say the visual might have come a split second before the verbal, but there is no measurable time delay evident, so it could be simultaneous. With the book cover of Faust I saw the word "Faust" and saw the pattern but I could not describe it in words. I looked at the cover on the shelf but it was different than what I saw. I searched for different book covers for it online and I saw the one I imaged. It is in the garage in a box. Someone had left it to me so I have both copies but forgot until I did this exercise. The one in the garage is nicer so I am switching them out

This is the one on the shelf that didn't come to mind.




I asked myself to describe my yard then I saw the image in mind. I didn't consciously focus on any one detail since I saw the whole yard. Then I asked to see a detail in the yard but I visualized it in relation to nearby objects. I saw my car in the driveway then I filtered the surrounding objects so the car stood out. It was more colorful but as I write this and think of my car I see the whole again. It takes more effort to bring something into complete focus, to the exclusion of everything around it, even though the whole is vivid.

I imaged another book in the last place I remembered seeing it. That one was right. I use it often for reminders. I then told myself move that book mentally and I saw it on the book shelf instead of on the nightstand. I wondered what @Pookie meant by thinking in movement. I am not sure if this is what he meant but I visualized moving a couple objects through the air and tracking their movement until I placed them across the room.

If I am not paying attention I lose small things, like keys, all the time. I can panic if I need it immediately and can't find it in the place I thought I left it. Sometimes someone else moved it and I will tear apart a room to find one tiny flash drive, with important information, only to find it in the first place I looked. This happened the other day. I was thinking of a different flash drive so I was visually blind to the actual one I needed. I just didn't see it at all. I looked three times and I swear it wasn't there. When I remembered which one I actually needed I looked again and I could see it. It was pretty weird. Sometimes I ask my brother if he has something of mine and he says, "no" without thinking but then he comes back in a few minutes and says, "oh yeah I have it". By this time I am surrounded in chaos from looking and thinking I am going crazy. It might look crazy to others but I clean up the mess.

I have to use abstract thinking when conceptualizing something outside my experience. Is there any other way? If I am writing a story from scratch and have to develop character personalities or when I imagine what it is like to no longer be in my physical body. These thoughts are more free flowing images and feelings. There is a time delay but I couldn't say how long since they morph until some type of concrete idea comes out of it that I can write down. Sometimes stream of thought and other times I struggle to put what I am imagining in writing, so it comes in bursts of stream of thought. I need to edit after because it is not always in the right order. To be understood I have to try harder to put things in the right sequence. I know what the right sequence is but the reader will not. It takes a little bit more effort. I do better on tests without short time limits. If I have 4 hours to do a test I will rarely use the whole 4 but if I have 20 minutes I will stress.

I think overall I can see very clear images but they lack detail. Sometimes I can zero in on one small detail but it is hard. It has to be an outstanding feature on it's own. A specific symbol or something. This confirms that I am pretty much "big picture" across the board.

I had assumed everyone did that, to some degree, until I started reading some of these links so one thinking style is sort of foreign to me. I am not as skeptical as the guy in the article but I still wonder what it is like in their heads.

Anyway this was sort of a ramble because too many competing thoughts to write. Pretty much every thought has a visual or feeling tone and don't get me started on random images that don't appear to make any sense. I saw a newborn baby's footprint just now for no reason at all. Maybe it is symbolic of me sorting this out.

Edit: When I say "lack detail" I mean the kind of detail I can describe in detail. I can see fractals with multiple colors. I can't always explain my imagery to another.

...This just sounds like normal but vague thinking to me. I think everyone just makes huge deals of how they're different and special to the point where it can't possibly be true, then other people feel like they have to follow. Not being able to find the right flash drive because you're thinking of the wrong one is why all that I Spy type stuff tends to be hard for people ("Oh, so it was purple?"). Having random images pop into your mind is normal ("For some reason I just thought of...") but most people don't pay much attention to them. Being able to describe weird fractals and things like that is the kind of thing that generally takes a lot of practice since that's outside of common experience and most language use is centered around common experience.

[Aylen]

...This just sounds like normal but vague thinking to me. I think everyone just makes huge deals of how they're different and special to the point where it can't possibly be true, then other people feel like they have to follow. Not being able to find the right flash drive because you're thinking of the wrong one is why all that I Spy type stuff tends to be hard for people ("Oh, so it was purple?"). Having random images pop into your mind is normal ("For some reason I just thought of...") but most people don't pay much attention to them. Being able to describe weird fractals and things like that is the kind of thing that generally takes a lot of practice since that's outside of common experience and most language use is centered around common experience.

Post your own thinking process instead of trying to dismiss mine. If that is all you got out of my post then you missed the whole reason I did the exercise.

I had assumed everyone did that, to some degree, until I started reading some of these links so one thinking style is sort of foreign to me. I am not as skeptical as the guy in the article but I still wonder what it is like in their heads.

The guy claimed to only think verbally without imagery. That would make him the "special" one wouldn't it? You just read my post and assumed I thought it was special when I didn't.

[Pallas]

The guy claimed to only think verbally without imagery. That would make him the "special" one wouldn't it? You just read my post and assumed I thought it was special when I didn't.

That's generally considered a disability.

And yeah, you kind of did since you spent several paragraphs on your thought processes and a couple of sentences on other peoples'. If it was other peoples' that was unusual, that would've clearly been the center of the discussion. There's no need to mention things like "multicolored fractals that I can't describe" unless that's supposed to be unusual somehow. No one says "The sky isn't green again today!" because that's not worth mentioning.

[Aylen]

That's generally considered a disability.

And yeah, you kind of did since you spent several paragraphs on your thought processes and a couple of sentences on other peoples'. If it was other peoples' that was unusual, that would've clearly been the center of the discussion. There's no need to mention things like "multicolored fractals that I can't describe" unless that's supposed to be unusual somehow. No one says "The sky isn't green again today!" because that's not worth mentioning.

Read the whole thread and perhaps you can see how it all fits together.

The op asked:

How do you primarily think and organize information?

What exactly are you having trouble understanding here?

If you saw these multi colored fractals frequently you might find them worth mentioning when asked if you think visually, abstractly or in words. This isn't as big a deal as you are making it by drawing attention to it instead of posting anything related to what the op asked.

[The Reality Denialist]

Abstraction.

I tend to rip all information apart into abstract pieces do some lateral thinking and reassemble.

It can even be practical. For example I can solve technical problems really fast. I look at it rip essentials into framework, imagine a bit and BAM. People tend to get amazed how fast I can be. Of course this does not mean that I'm great at let's say meticulous software or something like that on my feet.

[Computer Loser]

Depends. Sometimes I think with my head, but sometimes I think with "my other" head, if you catch my drift

[Aylen]

All of them, combined with music which tends to be the most present. I grew up basically glued to a radio so it's natural why I would often think using random lyrics or melodies.

I was also raised on music. Our family sang together often. Not that we were any good. lol It was a way of passing time on road trips or rainy days. The kids in my family also put on plays and "concerts" for the adults. I remember doing talent shows in grade school with my friends. We even won our school and went to regionals. My friend's mom made us matching costumes. I had terrible stage fright. I almost passed out. I was in school chorus all through grade school (1-6). I tried several musical instruments but had no real talent or interest in them.

Music still plays an important part of my life though. I have a song for just about any situation and I listen for hours every day unless I am in a serious contemplative mode. Then I need silence. My brother and I sing our responses to each other instead of speaking, sometimes. He has such bad taste in music but I know the songs and can respond. hah

[squark]

To answer the original question - I think both in words and pictures. Usually simultaneously, as in I see a picture and "talk" about it in my head at the same time. I don't see words as text, unless I'm picturing a word on purpose to remember its spelling or to see a list that was written down somewhere to read off what was on the list in my head. The words instead are normally auditory - I hear them.

According to our little friend wikipedia:

Visual thinking has been described as seeing words as a series of pictures.[citation needed] It is common in approximately 60%–65% of the general population.[1]

"Real picture thinkers", those persons who use visual thinking almost to the exclusion of other kinds of thinking, make up a smaller percentage of the population. Research by child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words. According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be true "picture thinkers".[2]

So, those who think purely in words make up the smallest percentage, but 25% isn't uncommon, so that's kind of interesting. I wonder what it'd be like to think purely in words or purely in pictures. . . it'd almost be like being either blind or deaf, but only inside your head.

[Myst]

By default I do spatial thinking in a quick visual picture that's usually concrete spatial-logical relations of the situation/problem, or for certain things I can think in words in bits here and there - but they are mainly shown as written words, the auditory component is not in "foreground" for me. I don't really use words to think too much though, sometimes it just helps anchor the focus for concentration a little more or something. Often not needed at all. It's enough for me to verbalize things when I write them out in actual text on paper etc. Then in a less visual-spatial way, I have lots of "bits of thinking" putting things together from certain types of new data that can be sequentially processed and put away in their places, half verbal (the silent visual words), half just felt-seen in an organized logical picture. Ah and then I sometimes have some abstract spatials that are just shapes/colours to illustrate more abstract concepts. They are lovely in their abstractness.

Funnily enough, the quick visual picture can be so quick that I don't even notice having actually used it for everyday stuff. So natural to me. It's also because most of my consciousness usually focuses on the sensory traits/details/spatial organization of the surroundings and the thinking bits are just somewhere in the space behind that in my mind. If I do try to strongly focus away from the surroundings then the inner logical picture comes into mind, usually logical-spatial, and even when it's not explicitly/concretely spatial and instead consists of just a logically felt sense of things in the inner picture, it feels like it still utilizes spatial thinking somehow for the organization but somehow it's more than that with logical concepts. Definitely not verbal is what I can say for sure but of course when extracting it, I can continuously verbalize it into writing on paper etc.

As for my memory, first, it's very location based. Then, much of it it's static pictures of situations with spatial organization, often linked to my own conscious moves that I made. I noticed once when testing myself that I actually store many many of these snapshots for the last days before most of them (not important ones) get forgotten. I'm able to flick through them in order of experiencing them if I want tho' I never do this by default, just tested myself on it. Otoh I don't relate to wanting to mentally walk around the scene of one snapshot, that to me is weird somehow, not feeling like moving the viewpoint I originally had of the situation. I'm capable of doing so but I see no point to do so, I already see everything anyway. It's a 3D allocentric scene stored in the snapshot but somehow inside a picture that feels flatter, looking from an inside viewpoint making it more fixed and static.

I also remember in a salient way the core logical concepts/core logical meaning of things and then I can extract the further details from that when recalling, this process is actually helped by verbalizing a bit, helping focus via putting into words what I already thought of, the core and then what follows from that and so on. Ooooh and numbers I remember extremely well.

Sometimes I can recall people stuff in a more dynamic way, their emotionality and related stuff. It's nice. My rarely utilized imagination about stories about people or about internal digging into my own psyche is also movie-like in this way.

My mind is not entirely silent btw, as the above could indicate it. I do like to play music bits in my head pretty frequently. And, it can actually contribute to my memorizing of things via some weird auditory-visual-spatial-etc synesthesia. Numbers and concepts of logical systems get associated with that synesthesia the easiest.

As for remembering time. I do not recall moving stuff/sequences of events like Pookie does but it sounds cool. I have a decently felt sense of how long ago something happened, I can sometimes compare two events in terms of this, as to which one happened earlier, and get it right, even if they happened a while ago. I can of course also deduce the sequence. It also helps that I do try to record dates on a timeline for autobiographical memory, I like to keep my memories decently well in order time-wise. It might relate to how I prefer to have a course forward too. So I'd feel pretty disoriented if I had no idea if something happened a month ago or three days ago. That to me is an almost tangibly felt difference in time anyway.

[The Reality Denialist]

To find concrete ground on my thinking i found this one good.
http://www.projectlearnet.org/tutori..._thinking.html

I actually tend to make a lot of errors in concrete thinking. Sometimes I have caught myself thinking: next there is going to be XYZ walk... What is that? Then it strikes to me: we are going to move our feet in quite slow pace.

[chrys]

I think in images and feelings mostly... reading is hard though since it disrupts my ability to think in images and feelings, it forces me to come up with the literal meaning of each word instead of getting an immediate impression.

The images I do get I don't usually focus on though, they're mostly in the background and come with the feelings which I go off of.

[boy]

First I think in plain text, then I further visualize and create images of the plain text to help me get a better grasp of the information. Then, to organize, I put every piece of information I've processed and analyzed in to an abstract archival system, which connects all the scenarios and information I've thought of. jk hehe

[Pallas]

Anyways, where was the original article? I didn't know anyone thought in text as a primary way of thinking. That seems like thinking in touch or smell to me, with the primary ways people think supposedly being either streams of spoken words ("auditory") or pictures ("visual"). I'm not sure I even think much of thinking "in" things so much as "with". By that I mean, it's easy to imagine yourself going outside after the rain, and you walk along and see greyish light reflecting off of things, hear the wind move leaves gently and birds chirp, feel the humidity and temperature, smell and taste the air, and do whatever kinds of things you'd do then, including if you decide to sit down and read something and you imagine the words (maybe this is complicated and not easy for everyone, but my point stands). What are you thinking "in" then? It's just constructing a scene out of memories, which would make your thinking take place somewhere "out" of the scene and put it together from the outside if you want to use a preposition. You can also later still decide to do the same thing you imagined during a time it does rain even if you don't imagine it like that ahead of time.

[Myst]

Anyways, where was the original article? I didn't know anyone thought in text as a primary way of thinking. That seems like thinking in touch or smell to me

Why? Text contains a lot of information. Unlike touch or smell, those are a bit more limited in terms of that for most people (e.g. for blind people ofc touch is less limited).

with the primary ways people think supposedly being either streams of spoken words ("auditory") or pictures ("visual"). I'm not sure I even think much of thinking "in" things so much as "with". By that I mean, it's easy to imagine yourself going outside after the rain, and you walk along and see greyish light reflecting off of things, hear the wind move leaves gently and birds chirp, feel the humidity and temperature, smell and taste the air, and do whatever kinds of things you'd do then, including if you decide to sit down and read something and you imagine the words (maybe this is complicated and not easy for everyone, but my point stands). What are you thinking "in" then?

That sounds like visual thinking for the most part. Thinking in pictures with a bit of auditory and other bits of sensory information.

It's just constructing a scene out of memories, which would make your thinking take place somewhere "out" of the scene and put it together from the outside if you want to use a preposition. You can also later still decide to do the same thing you imagined during a time it does rain even if you don't imagine it like that ahead of time.

There are different formats your memories can be stored in, too. Like I said above, one of the formats for me is visual-spatial and another format is logical meaning. Etc.

Sure, your thinking can take place somewhere "out" of the scene but it can also be a part of it, integrated information.

[squark]

I find the link between being highly/nearly exclusively visual thinking and autism interesting. There's indication that they don't connect visual with verbal:

https://academic.oup.com/brain/artic...sm-thinking-in

Really interesting. It explains some of their context difficulties and they don't "talk" inside their heads but to a very limited degree leaning instead on visual-spatial thinking. Everything is processed visuospatially unlike the non-autistic controls in this study

The participants with autism seemed to process high- and low-imagery sentences similarly (as described below, they were recruiting the visuospatial areas that support visual imagery in both conditions). The control group showed a large difference between the two conditions; in particular, one of the regions in which the control group prominently showed more activation in the high-imagery condition is the IPS area, which has previously been strongly associated with visual imagery in sentence comprehension (Just et al., 2004b). Note that the autism group also had a large amount of activation in this region, but it was approximately equal in magnitude in the two conditions,

The whole thing is interesting (at least I think so) but here's another quote summing things up a bit

Thinking in pictures during sentence comprehension may be an adaptation to the underconnectivity in autism, making greater use of parietal and occipital areas and relying less on frontal regions for linguistic processing, possibly because the connections between the frontal and parietal regions are compromised.

[Myst]

I find the link between being highly/nearly exclusively visual thinking and autism interesting. There's indication that they don't connect visual with verbal

Yeah, that article was interesting.

I used a little visual imagery (simplified holistic images of "8" and "eyeglasses") for the processing the example sentence of "The number eight when rotated 90 degrees looks like a pair of eyeglasses", and used zero imagery for the sentence of "Addition, subtraction and multiplication are all math skills", instead I used my processing for logical concepts there, which is a half verbal process, though it would slow me down if I had to articulate each word in my head so I don't do that, and some of it is just me "feeling" the concepts... it's also that process I use for extracting logical details from the core logical concept or inner logical picture, too, as I described in my above post.

Thinking in pictures during sentence comprehension may be an adaptation to the underconnectivity in autism, making greater use of parietal and occipital areas and relying less on frontal regions for linguistic processing, possibly because the connections between the frontal and parietal regions are compromised.

That's so completely foreign to me to use mental imagery for reading all kinds of text. My LIE-Ni ex told me he saw a lot of mental imagery when reading stories. I see nearly none. He wasn't autistic though so it's probably not specific to that. Ni egos actually often tell me that they use a lot of mental imagery where I use none. My visuality mentally is primarily spatial, not imagery based beyond that, they seem to be able to use images in a way I don't/can't.

Visual thinking has been described as seeing words as a series of pictures.[citation needed] It is common in approximately 60%–65% of the general population.

Again that's totally foreign to me, when I'm reading, I don't see a series of pictures at all. I see the words as written, not visualized, they are just in front of me on the paper or the monitor, and the thinking process I described earlier (the non-visual part of the logical process) is running along with it in the background.

"Real picture thinkers", those persons who use visual thinking almost to the exclusion of other kinds of thinking, make up a smaller percentage of the population. Research by child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words. According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be true "picture thinkers".

Ah and this, I'm in the 45%.

[Hope]

I talk a lot in my head (not with my mouth) without images, then I'm totally invested in what I'm doing and stop thinking with words, just focused in whatever I'm doing. A lot of music plays in my head too. I can imagine/create scenes in my head, like if I were watching a movie(with sound and evn sensatios) more than mere pictures.

[Aylen]

Why? Text contains a lot of information. Unlike touch or smell, those are a bit more limited in terms of that for most people (e.g. for blind people ofc touch is less limited).

That sounds like visual thinking for the most part. Thinking in pictures with a bit of auditory and other bits of sensory information.

There are different formats your memories can be stored in, too. Like I said above, one of the formats for me is visual-spatial and another format is logical meaning. Etc.

Sure, your thinking can take place somewhere "out" of the scene but it can also be a part of it, integrated information.

This thread was interesting to me from the beginning but it didn't really go anywhere at the time. Most likely the op considered himself defective when he posted it. I don't know that for sure but they deleted most of the op.

I think your way of processing, as you wrote it, was a little harder for me to tune into and follow. I am still not completely sure what it means to be a visual/spatial thinker. I guess Wyrd's thinking is pretty normal to me. She describes imagining/visualizing a scene from memory and/or anticipating what it would be like outside of having the actual experience.

When I read a book I get the visual, some sensory, emotions/feelings, along with the words even if I am reading about things outside personal experience. Unlike @Fvaelynn reading doesn't trip me up. I can process it simultaneously. The article @unsuccessfull Alphamale and I both linked was better for me in terms of explaining my abstract thought. That is right up there with my verbal and visual. I don't have problems understanding concrete thinkers but sometimes explaining to them can be more difficult and even draining.

Hmm, when I looked for a test to distinguish abstract thinking I ended up finding one that tested abstract reasoning so I took it. I got 8 out of 10 right. I got a bit bored of it by the end and my mind was wandering so I guessed at the last two to end my torment. I really have to be a frame of mind where I want to take these tests. I score higher when I consistently challenge myself.

Ok, so I did another exercise, this morning, this time I closed my eyes and challenged myself to navigate my home without opening them. I did pretty well since I probably didn't bumped into things any more than I do with my eyes open. lol I was very focused on visualizing each step, estimating the distance from one thing to another. I had to stop a couple times and get my bearings. It was the open spaces that I found harder to judge the distance even though I could visualize the layout just fine. I have never memorized how many steps from one thing to another since I have never had to. I had some eye allergy problem that most likely helped me with this exercise since I had been learning to navigate with eyes swollen closed a few times until I took the meds .

I could not read a map until I was older than most. I covered for that in other ways. It only helped when someone told me to use the sun for a sense of direction and that I could do. I probably just had an overall bad sense of geography and mostly used landmarks to navigate familiar places. I could get turned around in unfamiliar areas and get overwhelmed to the point I would just drive until I found a way out. :/ I don't fear getting lost anymore.

Anyway, I was able to get myself a drink and back to my room without spilling it, all with my eyes closed. It took so much longer. My worst fear has always been to go blind. I think I have been able to face it but it doesn't make the idea any less terrifying on a grand scale. Blind people who can navigate their surroundings and even live on their own amaze me.

As far as what pookie describes about sequence, I take that for granted and it is through reading this thread that I see not everyone does that. There is one particular person, I know, that has a strange time perception in comparison to my own. They think of something that happened in the morning might as well be a long time ago and they often forget the sequence of events or how long ago something actually occurred. It is like, a week ago might as well have been a month ago to them. I would say they are more "in the moment" because of this. I often laugh at their scale of time because it seems so strange to me. I see this might have something to do with how they process and store information.

I have a pretty good idea of when something happened. I am not always 100% on sequence of events but I get close enough that it doesn't really matter. As I get older I might be off by a year (in age, not time) when looking back at my childhood but it is not blocky or anything. It was for awhile there but I had other things going on. I am off sometimes because of a shifting point from one age to another.

I feel like I have had to repair a lot of self inflicted damage to my brain but it is obvious that I have repaired it. I have most of my memories back now and a sense of wholeness that was lacking a few years ago.

Edit: I don't know if this is relevant or not but I did experience a time period where I was obsessively counting things to ease tension. I vaguely remember that I would see the numbers overlaying the image of whatever I was counting. It was a very stressful period in my life. The numbers hung in the air over everything. I don't do that anymore. I think it was a way of grounding myself.

[rat200Turbo]

Chess is a good representation of visual spatial thinking... there is a logic and maneuvering to it, but the parts are visual and physical things rather than abstract concepts such as words. It is still about logic the logic is just visual and spatial. If you look at a parking spot and you think "I can fit my car in there", you are accessing some visual spatial part of your brain. Now whether you can actually park the car, that's another question and has more to do with your kinesthetic intelligence. Pouring a drink and then holding it and not spilling it has actually probably more to do with kinesthetic intelligence.

The talk about autism is completely backwards: although autistics struggle to pick up language at an early age, they tend to score much higher on Verbal intelligence measures than Performance (i.e. visual spatial) measures. It's actually kind of a strange thing... autistics don't think exclusively in pictures what they do is they take an abstract concept and will obsess over it trying to associate it with a concrete depiction. This is why they always develop obsessions... What they cannot do is take a visual spatial representation and extrapolate the abstract principles from it, and then relate that with other abstract concepts... this is why their visual spatial scores are always lower.

[squark]

An interesting first-hand account of someone with autism describing her thinking process and how she accesses visual and verbal information:

http://www.weautistic.com/topics/my-...ism-think.html

(There's a similarity between how she describes her thought process and Aylen's quote on how Einstein described his. That doesn't mean he was autistic as there are also non-autistic visual thinkers and all may describe their thinking processes along the same line. Dyslexics also are more visual, but as I recall with them the hemispheric development of their brain tends to be more even or leans towards greater right-brain development, so there is a different connection there between brain and visual thinking and they don't suffer from difficulty with contextual thinking the way autistic people do.)

[squark]

Edit: I don't know if this is relevant or not but I did experience a time period where I was obsessively counting things to ease tension. I vaguely remember that I would see the numbers overlaying the image of whatever I was counting. It was a very stressful period in my life. The numbers hung in the air over everything. I don't do that anymore. I think it was a way of grounding myself.

Just a sidenote, not really related, but some days ago I was walking out to my mailbox and suddenly realized I had been saying "2875" over and over in my head with each step, and stopped and said (in my head), "what the hell? why am I repeating this?" and an image of an app I'd recently installed that counts steps and the number that was on the screen when I looked at it before I left came to mind. I saw the number clearly in my head, and laughed that I had automatically just started repeating it to myself as though I needed to remember it. I sometimes do that with numbers I want to remember and it's become a kind of habit, so now, for no reason whatsoever I still, days later have the image of the number in my head, and can hear myself repeating it.

[Aylen]

An interesting first-hand account of someone with autism describing her thinking process and how she accesses visual and verbal information:

http://www.weautistic.com/topics/my-...ism-think.html

(There's a similarity between how she describes her thought process and Aylen's quote on how Einstein described his. That doesn't mean he was autistic as there are also non-autistic visual thinkers and all may describe their thinking processes along the same line. Dyslexics also are more visual, but as I recall with them the hemispheric development of their brain tends to be more even or leans towards greater right-brain development, so there is a different connection there between brain and visual thinking and they don't suffer from difficulty with contextual thinking the way autistic people do.)

I did a quick read of the article and noticed some interesting similarities to how I think. I have compared my brain to a computer as well here on the forum but the web browser analogy is not quite how I experience my own processes.

I specifically relate to the following parts and if I were to read more carefully maybe a bit more. I don't have her talent to invent. I probably suck at invention other than little things I figured out to make my own life easier. I get a lot of solutions to problems in this state of drifting in, and then out, of the sleep. My dream imagery has grown more complex over the years but my ability to interpret has also become stronger. I attribute that to the experiences I store either consciously or subconsciously along with an associative memory. I take my dreams pretty seriously when it comes to problem solving, especially understanding myself and others. They often tell me what I need to do even if I don't like it.

Often, the best ideas for inventing things come just as I am drifting off to sleep. The pictures are clearer then. It is as though I can access the most concrete, vivid memory files with the most detailed images. The language part of my brain is completely shut off at night.

If I am coming out of sleep I just have the words I need that I didn't have before sleeping. Definitely not on the scale of great inventions.

I also see the process in a situation she describes below but it is more dreamlike for me. I am not sure how concrete the experience is for her. For me, is like time slows down and the most probable outcome jumps out amidst the others that are sort of on my peripheral. I don't consciously sort through as much as I choose in the moment the best response. I have written about this kind of thing before here and I never feel I do it justice.

I feel weird repeating this again but people ask me how I have been able to avoid accidents or whatever. It is hard to explain. I just know by what I see before me and to the side of me but it is not conscious. I am not hyper aware of everything going on around me. It is similar to being able to navigate through traffic and not getting caught at lights when I am in the zone. It just flows. I feel like this happens almost outside myself on autopilot. I am not able to just give the details of how it played out. Yeah so like a dream sequence that I "wake up" from when someone speaks to me during or right after.

I see the decision process

I see the decision-making process in my mind in a way most people do not. When I tried to explain this to a person who thinks in language, he just didn't get it. How my decision-making works is most clearly seen in an emergency.

On a bright, sunny day, I was driving to the airport when an elk ran into the highway just ahead of my car. I had only three or four seconds to react. During those few seconds, I saw images of my choices. The first image was of a car rear ending me. This is what would have happened if I had made the instinctive panic response and slammed on the brakes. The second image was of an elk smashing through my windshield. This is what would have happened if I had swerved. The last image showed the elk passing by in front of my car. The last choice was the one I could make if I inhibited the panic response and braked just a little to slow the car. I mentally "clicked" on slowing down and avoided an accident. It was like clicking a computer mouse on the desired picture.

The following is something I was discussing in chatbox recently. I sleep to thunderstorm/lightning videos/sounds because they relax me. Whispering or a high pitched noise are like nails on a chalkboard to me. Firecrackers kept waking me on the 3/4th of July but putting on an 8 hours thunderstorm video drowned it out and helped me sleep through the night. I can't sleep to complete silence or in a completely dark room. I will often wake in a panic if someone turns off the lights or sounds. I am disoriented by that.

Disturbing sounds

I have always felt that my senses were more like those of an animal. Does my brain have deeper access to the ancient anti-predator circuits that humans share with animals? At night, I cannot get to sleep if I hear high-pitched, intermittent noise such as a backup alarm on a truck or children yelling in the next hotel room; they make my heart race. Thunder or airport noise does not bother me, but the little high-pitched noises cannot be shut out. Recent research with pigs has confirmed that intermittent sounds are more disturbing to them than steady sounds.

Why are high-pitched sounds disturbing to animals (and to me), while airport noises and thunder are not? I speculate that in nature the rumble of thunder is not dangerous but a high-pitched noise would be an animal's distress call. Beeping backup alarms and car alarms are electronic distress calls, which activate my nervous system even though I know they are harmless. It is almost as though these animal circuits in my brain have been laid bare.

Whispering triggers me in ways that loud sudden noises do not. It can wake me from a sound sleep to hear whispering in another room. It triggers a fear in me of something almost demonic in nature (don't laugh).

Cool article. Thanks!

[Skepsis]

My thoughts are vivid images usually, like my dreams.

[The Reality Denialist]

My thoughts are vivid images usually, like my dreams.

How vivid? Painting worthy?


I can do visual stuff which is very low in details (where content can be bit complex) something you can see in The Simpsons (even less).
I remember that I had to ask help from a lab assistant to give me aid in visual stuff just to carry out one physics lab work. I can imagine spatial relations...

[Skepsis]

How vivid? Painting worthy?


I can do visual stuff which is very low in details (where content can be bit complex) something you can see in The Simpsons (even less).
I remember that I had to ask help from a lab assistant to give me aid in visual stuff just to carry out one physics lab work. I can imagine spatial relations...

Sometimes painting worthy. Depends what it pertains to.

[Pallas]

That's so completely foreign to me to use mental imagery for reading all kinds of text. My LIE-Ni ex told me he saw a lot of mental imagery when reading stories. I see nearly none. He wasn't autistic though so it's probably not specific to that. Ni egos actually often tell me that they use a lot of mental imagery where I use none. My visuality mentally is primarily spatial, not imagery based beyond that, they seem to be able to use images in a way I don't/can't.

This just sounds like some sort of speculative autistic buzzword-using to me. The last thing I read about autism says that they don't engage in any sort of pretending since they have impaired theory of mind and it's difficult to impossible for them to notice their own mental states in order to enjoy simulating a different one, and they can't solve a certain puzzle even if they want to. This is basically the opposite thing, saying they have to simulate mental states due to not having abstract thinking or something. Which is it? Aside from people with really obvious impairments (including milder ones, just clear impairments) all the speculation is useless.