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?
Purple-ish
Male? Maybe?
Too abstract I more imagined an arm more than a whole person
Baseballish
Square, I dunno it was also purple. I get very like, early computer animation type vibes from the whole scene. “Ball” and “table” without any context just leaves everything kinda blank.
I think I already knew. Maybe the gender one was a stretch.
- Orange *No gender. *Bald mannequin, like the outlines of people in bathroom stalls. *Baseball *Square wooden table.
I’ve put some effort into improving my visualization since learning about aphantasia. Upon reading the prompt, I was able to imagine a colorless ball, but with shading to indicate a 3D shape, like a preview render in a CAD program. That’s progress! It didn’t have a size inherently. For the table, I could picture a white, rectangular plane hovering in a black void. If it was a normal dinner table size, then the ball was something like a softball or basketball.
And that’s it. That exhausted my ability to visualize. No person, no push, no motion. Best I can do is to see the white rectangle after the ball has rolled off of the edge.
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!
deleted by creator
Red No gender No appearance No size The table was the same color as our dining table, but that was the only property it had.
It was a billiards/pool ball, but no idea which one as I just associate balls on tables with playing pool.
No idea on gender, formless concept.
No idea on looks, just a concept.
Whatever size a pool ball is, 2-3 inches? Just a concept though.
It is a pool table with green felt and a raised edge and six pockets because that is what a pool table is. Can’t really see it. Just aware of it’s general properties and how the felt and wood feels.
Eveey detail is based ona pool tabke and ball because my first thought about balls on tables is playing pool. Without the table detail I wouldn’t have anything at all to work with.
The scene was like an example reel from a video game, greenscale-ish translucent humanoid mannequin standing in a pseudo void, with a nondescript rectangular table of a similar greenscale-ish semi translucent material, and only the ball is “finished” as it is the camera focus. It is approximately between baseball and softball size, smooth, but I did not pay attention to the color. There is an “interaction/activation” sound effect as the mannequin kinda leans over and lightly pushed the ball to cause it to roll. It rolls to a stop on the table top, and this action loops.
The center of focus pulled back as I read the questions, more becoming aware of them than choosing them, and the scene changed with a camera pull out as part of the “ball is pushed” tutorial clip.
I have realized how much growing up as a gamer as influenced my perspective.
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.
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.
Blue
Gender-nondescript, like a drawing in a school book
See above
Tennis ball size
Square, particle board like Ikea furniture
Some of them I extrapolated upon after seeing the questions because having unknowns in your mind’s eye is not uncomfortable to people with intellectual integrity
- The ball was red.
- I have no idea.
- I have no idea.
- Like, maybe softball sized? A little bigger? I’m not sure.
- Square. It was made of brown.
-
gray ball, about the size of a typical dodge-ball.
-
Featureless, sexless “humanoid”; like a “suggestion of a person” or a “fuzzy shadow”.
-
Round table. Nondescript. Most similar to one of those tall, small round tables you find in pubs. But again, featureless.
-
Nothing happens when the human pushes it. The human can’t push it because the human has no physical form.
-
- rolls off the table, bounces a bit and rolls toward a glass door, where it also bounces gently after hitting the glass door. You could see outside into a yard that had a green garden in it. And trash bins outside.
- blue
- female, I think. But I didn’t pay much attention to the person at all.
- long light brown hair, wearing a winter jacket, facing away from me. So I couldn’t see their face.
- it was a dodgeball. Blue dodgeball. Not brand new. A few scuff marks on it. I could see like, the raised bumps on it.
- it was a dark brown thin wooden table. It had a tray with a vase in the middle of it with a green plant with long grass-like leaves. There was a black, modern looking chandelier hanging from the ceiling above it. The table kind of looked like it came from IKEA lol.
The reason this is so detailed is that I just so happened to imagine the kitchen from a friend’s house. I already know everything that’s in there. It was easy to picture. And no, I didn’t come up with any of this as a result of answering the questions. I just saw it in my head.
