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submitted 2 months ago by zlatiah@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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?


(page 4) 50 comments
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[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I don't literally SEE it like I would with my eyes but:

Red ball

Clown, no idea of gender

Again, clown

Ball smaller than tennis ball, bigger than golf ball

The table I am sitting at and looking at right now.

And no, I can and do imagine how things look. It's a different sort of knowing/imagining than actual physical vision or dreaming though. Which led me to be confused about what exactly aphantasia is.

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[-] NicolaHaskell@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

At first I saw something silhouetted on a card table. Then Action entered the story and I had to choose an adventure after being asked what happened.

I figured how it rolls might depend on who pushed it, and I already knew that. Kevin. Why he did it was less clear. Muscle memory placed us at a table in the canteen. Sitting across from him on any ordinary day, some rolled up piece of napkin or a wad of garbage paper might present itself as a projectile to reach him across the plates and glass between us.

Tonight we were in my kitchen, together there for the first time. I'd moved the table into the corner with both leaves open to make extra space for snacks for the party. We pushed the pretzels and empties aside and sat facing each other off the edge of the table, knees nearly interlocked.

My chin was on my hand and my heart was on the ceiling. We were laughing about something when I noticed the toy baseball on the table. The stairs creaked and the sound of background chatter crept in like a breeze that chilled my spine. He flicked the ball, and it rolled fast off the edge then fell to the floor with a flat thud.

The phone on the wall behind him rang, and I clicked to review the test questions.

[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Everything was shadows with rainbow outlines, basically.

I think this is a fun exercise, but Idk I'm oblivious to a lot of things excepts shapes and interactions. More telling is my dreams tend to fall into two categories:

Objects without details but with crisp, colorful outlines and dark scenes with illuminated spacces where the more fleshed out areas that are illuminated.

And my ability to imagine is similar- if no lighting condition is given my mental image is shadows with rainbow outlines. If the instructions include lighting the details are more robust: A cat will have a color, a ball will be plain and white and softball sized.

[-] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 2 points 2 months ago

The ball was blue and kind of glossy, clearly made of plastic.

The person was a scruffy looking femme character in black and white. I just subbed in a character from a comic post above this one.

The ball was about 50% bigger than a baseball.

The table was a round coffee table with that fake wood texture paneling you see on cheap furniture, you know the type? It was a muted brown color.

I did know that I was probably expected to visualize details on the described object, but not the person or table!

[-] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago
  • small dull red rubber ball
  • no obvious gender
  • they looked simple, like a Simpsons character. Impression of having a body, but only actually saw their hand
  • table was standard rectangular, wooden affair

My visualisation is quite chaotic, so I mostly see a jumble of overlapping objects then have to choose which one to focus on.

Surprisingly, I had a real hard time visualising the ball rolling on its own. The hand was either pushing it or it was bouncing off of the floor.

Interesting exercise!

[-] loveluvieah@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I visualized a blue ball the size of a tennis ball being pushed forward on a flat white surface by a shadowy figure with only the hand being visually clear. Upon the follow-up question, I believe that it solidified the gender in my mind to be male and also prompted me to think about the surface of the table edges in relation to where the figure stood. However, my main focus was on the blue ball and the hand pushing it forward over a white surface.

[-] stelelor@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

Before reading the questions:

  • The ball was uniformly gray, with a slight shine.
  • The person was genderless and featureless. I only pictured their hand and arm pushing the ball. The moment of contact was indistinct, as if the arm was hiding the ball from view.
  • The ball was the size of a large watermelon.
  • The table was square, about 1m² , brown-gray, with four turned legs. Same material as the ball: uniformly colored and vaguely glossy.
[-] Bobmighty@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

My ball was blue. It's one of those dog toy soft bouncy ones. Table is rectangular, wood, with a light colored stain that's well polished. A man casually slaps the ball and I hear the sound that type of ball makes as it bounces without much force. It bounced once off the table, then off the wall onto the floor where it did the dribble bounce off the tile in the kitchen until coming to rest on the carpet in the living room. None of what I see is related to my house.

If I really wanted to, I can vanish into this world I've built for the ball. I can get lost, staring out a window or something while not actually seeing anything because I'm in my head. I have hyperphantasia. It's seen more often than aphantasia, but it's not exactly common. It's very useful for creative endeavors, but has a lot of pitfalls; usually involving spacing out at inopportune times.

[-] squid_slime@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

I can only see still frames of random motions and detective gadget animated is the character who flicks the ball. The red ball which I then added a hammer and sickle moves with illustrative wooshes across the table bounces off of a wall into detective gadgets eye.

[-] Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Maybe the ball was light blue, I smaller than a baseball maybe standard stressball sized?

I didn't exact gender the person but did kinda imagine dude-hands because I was looking at my phone with my hands holding it. And I just imagined maybe a wood table, like a dinner table.

[-] abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago
  • black
  • male
  • nothing, it was just a hand pushing the ball
  • a ping pong ball
  • round, wood coloured, but thin like a metal coffee table.

I did have to think about how to put it into words, but the picture was fully formed before revealing the questions.

[-] ultranaut@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Ball color and size, and table shape and color were the only things I distinctly pictured, and the ball being deformed when pushed. Everything else was still sort of abstracted and not specifically visualized, and the table color changed to improve the contrast as I imagined the scene. If I stop and really focus on the scene I think I would fill in more specific details but at my pace of reading that's as far as it went. I think unless I have a reason to do otherwise I tend to visualize the minimum necessary.

[-] Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago
[-] ChexMax@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

So my ball was the ball from toy story on a round wooden kitchen table. Probably the table from my childhood home. So the ball is yellow with a blue stripe and a big red star. It has shading and a shadow. I switched it out for a golf ball, but that didn't seem right, so back to the bouncy ball from toy story, bigger than a baseball, smaller than a kickball. Because it's the ball from toy story, the young man pushing it is toy story animation style. I tried switching him out for a regular human, but it just seemed wrong so I couldn't. He goes with the ball.

[-] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

At my desk eating. So the table was my desk and I imagined a white ball that suddenly moved and fell down to the floor. I didn't imagine a person pushing it because that wasn't part of the deal. However when you asked the other stuff then yeah I could imagine up anything else in the same scene.

[-] aeki@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 months ago

All these details were present from only reading the title:

A very large and heavy marble that you'd need to pick up with both hands to hold. A man was already there keeping a hand on the marble, to prevent it from rolling on the wooden table. The table is simple, square and has 4 legs. I know what the marble would sound like if it were to roll, bumping over the little imperfections. This is happening indoors, but there's some natural light coming through. The table is relatively close to the edge of a room but you can still approach the table from all sides. The room is mostly undefined besides that. The man is not too detailed, I have a vague awareness of what he is like, but more like a gestalt of him.

After reading the prompt: The man rolled the ball with a soft push. It produced the expected sound and then he stopped it again before it fell. I felt anxiety when the ball rolled, and was relieved when it was stopped. I want to put it on soft cloth so that we can stop worrying about it rolling off the table. There's soft cloth nearby, and it's purple felt.

I have hyperfantasia.

[-] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

Really interesting reading your follow up post in here. It's so incredible to hear about how differently people can think.

I imagined the scene in detail, but to pay attention to all the details I had to think back to it and examine each part of what I imagined, if that makes any sense.

I pictured a side camera angle with a white metal table and a light blue wall behind. The ball was a soccer ball, and it was pushed by a woman's hand wearing a gray knit sweater. Only the hand and forearm are "in frame". Her arm comes in from the right side and pushes the ball to the left, rolling it across the table.

[-] 2ugly2live@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

My answers:

  • What color was the ball? Red
  • What gender was the person that pushed the ball?: seen from the bust, but a masculine physique
  • What did they look like?: Grey shirt, light skinned, clean nails, hands looks slightly worn.
  • What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?: Tennis ball size. Smooth and has a good bounce, but sounds solid.
  • What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of? Rectangle. Wooden. Smooth, but had a knot in it.

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?

I already knew? . I had to visualize it first to answer any questions.


[-] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I instantly saw a soccer ball on our dining room table. The push throws a glass of the table.

  • The color of the ball was white with black pattern like a classic soccer ball.

  • The gender was male.

  • I didn't see the person clearly, only the hands pushing.

  • Soccer ball

  • The table in my imagination was exactly our light brown beech wood dining room table.

The points described were instantly in my head. Only for the person itself I would need to try again.

[-] Tattorack@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
  1. The ball I imagined was made of polished metal and reflected its environment.

  2. A man.

  3. I did not imagine a face. But he was wearing a dark blue business suit with a red striped tie. A watch was on the wrist of the hand that pushed the ball.

  4. About the size of a large orange.

  5. It was a smaller rectangular table made of a dark, varnished wood.

I'm an artist. I often tend to visualise what I want to draw quite well.

What do i have if i can't stop the ball from falling? Like the person stops it from one side and it bounces to the other and fall that way.

I also have trouble stopping clocks from spinning in my imagination

[-] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago
[-] nyahlathotep@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

spoiler

  1. red
  2. no gender
  3. just an outline, maybe a bit tall?
  4. it was around the size of a softball
  5. the table was circular and small for a table, like maybe two could sit at it. I didn't imagine a material.
  6. I imagined more about the ball than anything else, it was made of a spongy material like in those sponge brushes for painting, and it was red. The person was a complete blank slate. The table was only circular, nothing else.
[-] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Color: red

Gender of pusher: undetermined

Looks of pusher: detached skinny white arm/hand

Size: roughly palm sized (full grown adult)

Table: wood, circular. Changed to black void with half pipe like pinball track upon being rolled.

After a quick visualization, that's what I got. Seeing the questions didn't change my answers

Edit: ball moved along the track for a moment before I stopped thinking about it, mostly since that train of thought made my brain switch to Sonic Spinball.

[-] match@pawb.social 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

i could answer all these questions except the gender, what does that count for

(it was a white reflective crystal ball being pushed off a half-cloth-covered wooden table by a wizard with a tall hood, beard, and tits)

[-] zaph@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

The ball is black, the table is black, the human is black. They're all just blobs I tell myself exist so I feel normal.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

My answers

  • It was sandy brown.
  • I didn't picture a person, but a real cat that I'm worried about. She's a female.
  • Like that specific furball looks like. She resembles savannah cats from a distance but she's a pure-bred mutt.
  • Around the size of my palm. Massive, springy.
  • I pictured the ball over the desk table that I'm using now.

I picked a lot of RL stuff (like the cat, or the table) to "build" the image with; I often do this. I picked all those things before seeing the questions.

[-] Cypher@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Light blue ball

Male

Medium height dressed in a long sleeved pale blue collared work shirt, wearing jeans, with a brown belt. Brown hair. Non-descript facial features.

Tennis ball sized

A white, rectangular wooden table.

I already knew, the picture formed instantly on reading the prompt. Initially my perspective was looking directly at the ball then when I read the part about pushing it off the table my perspective shifted further back.

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this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
259 points (98.5% liked)

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