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?
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.
Orange
Male
He was a server in a black waistcoat, white shirt. He was brushing the ball off the table before setting plates down.
It was a ball from a kid’s ball pit, so a little bigger than a baseball, smaller than a softball.
The table was round, with a red gingham table cloth.
The orange ball on the red gingham table cloth were there immediately, once instructed to visualize a person pushing it, it only made sense that it was a server, since the table seemed restauranty.
The ball falls off the edge but doesn’t make a sound, effectively disappears from the scene.
Glass ball for some reason
Nondescript woman, no distinct features, blurry at the edge of perception. Vaguely wearing business clothes.
Ball was softball size
Table was featureless but the size and color of the table I’m sitting at now
Huh. The person was off-frame. And I’m pretty sure i retroactively chose a color for the ball.
I think I might have a black-and-white imagination.
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.
Yeah, same. I can envision things but I don’t literally see it as though with my eyes. I can imagine an object and tell you how it would look if you rotated it, for example. I don’t think I have aphantasia.
The ball was silver and completely reflective. The seen basically looked like that image used for ray tracing testing. No gender just a hand. Table was black
- Red
- An amorphous blob in a humanoid shape doesn’t have a gender
- An amorphous blob in a humanoid shape
- Baseball sized
- Round, four legs, wood.
Haha no, I had to fill all that info in as I answered the questions. I mean, you can’t literally see the things in your minds eye. They’re more concepts.
- Small push, ball rolls a very short distance and stops
- No color
- Male, maybe an extension of myself doing the push
- I did not visualize a complete person, only a suggestion of a body, and a arm/hand to push the ball
- Size of two fists together
- I did not visualize a full table, more like a camera view of a tabletop. Nondescript wood finish.
Did I already know? Sort of… My brain rotated through multiple possible imaginings. It worked forward, then reversed the logic to complete the scene. Nothing was set in stone: My brain decided that the ball would not roll off the table. Why? The ball has an uneven surface, it wobbled when stopping. Why? Because it has a surface like a soccer ball. Why? Because that was the first “look” my brain landed on that answered the question. I recall rotating through different colors and finishes, but after my brain imagined the ball stopping I had to come up with a why.
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.
It’s a gentle push so the ball rolls for a second before falling off the edge of the table and bouncing away on the floor.
Ball Color: Bright red
Pusher Gender: Masculine
Pusher appearance: Caucasian, Tan suit, head was out of frame
Ball size: Tennis ball sized, but smooth with a seam around the middle
Table appearance: A square, short end table on a white studio backdrop. Dark wood with a glossy coating.
The important question: I can confidently say every question I already knew and was just describing what I was seeing, with the exception of maybe the pushers clothing. After reading the question my focus shifted to it and it visually resolved and I described it. Looked and felt almost the exact same way that you might not notice the details of an object in your peripheral because the focus of the scene was the ball, and then at a prompt, shifting your gaze and taking note of that object at the edge. It was framed like some kind of ball demonstration physics video.
-
What color was the ball?
Grey, I suppose? It wasn’t important until this question so it was kind of colorless, even though I could picture it. -
What gender was the person that pushed the ball?
Androgynous. -
What did they look like?
Nondescript. -
What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?
A bit larger than a softball. -
What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?
It was a rectangular table. It shifted from being smooth and grey to a lightly finished maple, then back again. -
Important question:
I didn’t really think about these details until asked.
-
- What color was the ball?
I didn’t see a color in my visualization, but I know it was red.
- What gender was the person that pushed the ball?
They were genderless; more of a concept of a person than an image of one.
- What did they look like?
Like…an area of visual space that my mind attached the identifier “Person” to.
- What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?
A little smaller than a tennis ball, but bigger than a ping pong ball.
- What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?
I didn’t see either property in my visualization, but it’s wooden and round.
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?
Lol. Well, I guess I botched that one. Obviously I did not know before being asked these questions, for most of the answers.
I didn’t know most answers, my mind kinda works with the concepts. The ball was there, but there was no color, not even a grayscale, but the absence of color ( I have difficulty imagining colors in general), the pweson was there, and was a woman, but with no face of features. I don’t even know if i really pictured a woman, or if my mind worked on that after seeing the questions. The table was there, but was simply a plane for the ball to be on, without features.
Now that I write this, it seems weird. Do people picture scenarios like this as if seeing a real scene? Can this be related to aphantasia? Should I be worried?
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.
Answer:
It was a simplistic grescale scenario devoid of unnecessary features. Think a simple and fast 3D render from the 90s or something. So everything was grescale, the person had no gender (or even features), and pushed a baseball sized sphere on a simple rectangular table made of indeterminate materials. Now I can picture something more detailed if required or desired but my mind focused on the mechanics of it all and kept details to a minimum. Asking for these details afterwards doesn’t generate them retroactively.
