For brain junkies - aphantasia

14 April 2019, 05:53 PM

quote:
The former president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios says he has a "blind mind's eye".

Most people can close their eyes and conjure up images inside their head such as counting sheep or imagining the face of a loved one.

But Ed Catmull, 74, has the condition aphantasia, in which people cannot visualise mental images at all.

And in a surprising survey of his former employees, so do some of the world's best animators.

Ed revolutionised 3D graphics, and the method he developed for animating curved surfaces became the industry standard.

He first realised his brain was different when trying to perform Tibetan meditation with a colleague.

Visualisation is a core part of the practice and he was told to picture a sphere in front of him.

Ed told the BBC: "I went home, closed my eyes… I couldn't see a thing and for an entire week I kept trying to visualise this sphere."

He spoke to colleagues and learned that some animators could form mental images so strong they would open their eyes and the image would still be there, so they could practically trace what they could see.

Ed just thought: "That's interesting, it's probably what makes them an artist."

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47830256

I've always been fascinated with stuff like this. Guess I figure there's some kind of common baseline for how our brains work, but then these kinds of things crop up and demonstrate how we're all wired a bit differently.

14 April 2019, 07:05 PM

ShiroKuro

Wow, that's fascinating! It's interesting too because you would think it would be a barrier, but then there are those with aphantasia who are making their living as artists, that's the part that's boggling to me.

I wonder what the parallel for musicians is.... we know that some musicians are incredibly good at hearing music in their heads, and Mozart was said to compose in his head (though how true that is is subject of debate).

So, does that mean that there are people who cannot hear music in their heads similar to aphantasi, and for example, they would only be able to compose when playing an instrument and hearing the sounds in real time...

quote:
Guess I figure there's some kind of common baseline for how our brains work, but then these kinds of things crop up and demonstrate how we're all wired a bit differently.

And just how different things can be is always really interesting... I'm reminded of an article from a few days ago about a 90+ year old woman whose organs were on the wrong side of her body, but it was never really noticed until she was quite old.

That kind of thing makes you think there must be much, much more biophysical diversity than anyone realizes, and we just don't know about it because the biophysically diverse person hasn't gotten sick yet.