visualization

Read during yesterday's procedures, Nov. 3 New Yorker with an article by Larissa MacFarquhar on people with aphantasia, the inability to summon to mind mental images, typically from one's own memory. People with this condition tend to think of abstract representations of the concept instead, which can be an advantage when a specific personal memory would be a distraction from the topic, and they often have trouble in general recalling details of their own distant pasts.

I don't think I quite have this, but it is true that I'm not very visually oriented. During conversations with people, for instance, I am concentrating so tightly on the content of what's being said that my eyes are off in the middle distance, not looking closely at the people I'm talking with.

But what really caught my attention was the report that many such people can easily recall things that are spatial rather than visual - it appears to be an entirely different sort of memory classification - and some have a truly awesome ability to remember music. That's me. I have a solid ability to remember and analyze geographic direction pathways, I'm interested in architecture far more than in other visual arts, and I can remember works of music that I know almost, though not quite, as well as the one who can summon up a 45-minute summary of Verdi's Requiem by just thinking about it. I tend to fatigue over remembering long works by scratch, but during a performance I always know exactly what is coming next.

It's not just music, either. When I remember my deceased parents, the images that come to mind tend to be those in photographs rather than direct memory. But I can recall the sounds of their voices precisely. That's because I was listening to what they were saying rather than concentrating on looking at them.

Where do you sit on this scale?