this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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This is a thought experiment "Ball on a Table" for detecting whether someone has Aphantasia. What do you see when you perform this experiment? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by zlatiah@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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This is more of me trying to understand how people imagine things, as I almost certainly have Aphantasia and didn't realize until recently... If this is against community rules, please do let me know.

The original thought experiment was from the Aphantasia subreddit. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/g1e6bl/ball_on_a_table_visualization_experiment_2/

Thought experiment begins below.

Try this: Visualise (picture, imagine, whatever you want to call it) a ball on a table. Now imagine someone walks up to the table, and gives the ball a push. What happens to the ball?

Once you're done with the above, click to review the test questions:

  • What color was the ball?
  • What gender was the person that pushed the ball?
  • What did they look like?
  • What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?
  • What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?

And now the important question: Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/gender/size, etc. after being asked these questions?

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[–] Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I've always found this subject fascinating. Why are we all so different in this regards? What's going or not going on up there? Anyway, this is my result…

Tap for spoilerI imagined a bright red ball, like a shiny red plasticy looking ball

The "person" pushing the ball was just a disembodied arm, the ball rolled and bounced around the pool table much as a pool ball would

The arm was pretty much my arm. I didn't bother to visualise the person, instead concentrating on the interaction with the ball.

The ball was larger than a pool ball, maybe softball sized or even slightly bigger

The table was basically a pool table, green felt, but smaller or maybe the ball was just much bigger

All this I knew from my visualisation but when answering the questions I probably solidified my thoughts a bit. When viewing things they are constantly changing or shifting to match new information/ideas/concepts of what's there. I don't really see the whole scene at once easily, instead focusing in on different aspects of it. For example if I'm concentrating on the red, shiny ball then the table is just a green plane/background.