Published on 12, July, 2020
In the Autism Quotient questionnaire, there is this statement:
"When I'm reading a story, I can easily imagine what the characters might look like"
What if I always use faces that I know, for example actors from shows I've seen a lot? Sometimes I pick an actor to be a character after the first description of the character, then later they might say something about their looks that doesn't fit with the actor, and I'll kinda ignore it because I already decided who is playing that character.
To agree with the statement, should one be able to "build a face" in ones mind based on the information given?
Sometimes these things are so hard to answer when you don't know how other people work.
Luckily for me, I find this a very simple question, and my answer may surprise some of you.
My answer is, no, I cannot. Not ever. Not even if you just showed me a picture of them two seconds ago. Not even if I try to imagine them as played by my best friend.
This is called aphantasia. I can see with my eyes just fine, but I can't conjure up images only in my mind. I have no "mind's eye"
If you don't mind me asking, how do memories work for you? I tend to see them as visual images.