Based on the article and the comments here, it sounds like the way you remember things must be missing a lot of details. I'm speculating here because I just saw a movie today at a theater and I can playback scenes in my mind. I can certainly describe a scene with words but that's clearly very limiting. At the very least, I don't have words to map to all the colors my eyes can detect. Do you think that's accurate?
That's said, I imagine if you rewatched a recent movie, you would recollect every scene during the act of rewatching, just like someone without aphantasia.
For anyone who has a hard time believing this condition is real (because I initially did) here's how I think about it. When I first learned there are people who are color blind, I was stunned and skeptical that I could be looking at a certain colored flower and someone next to me didn't see the same reality. I can also easily believe that someone can imagine something in their mind way more vividly than I can. I'm willing to bet you could do an experiment where you give various people step by step instructions to do origami in their mind, draw a top-down view of the final shape, and there'd be a wide range of accuracy even among people without aphantasia.
> it sounds like the way you remember things must be missing a lot of details.
> Do you think that's accurate?
I don't think someone with aphantasia (of which I am one!) is really capable of assessing this - which details our memories have routinely omitted is an unknown unknown until we're explicitly made conscious of the gap.
With regard to your example of a movie, I think you may be overweighting the importance of visualization in recalling narratives (and details within them). Fiction books (for adults, anyways) generally lack visuals, yet readers across the entire visualization spectrum[0] can engage with them and recall/discuss scenes, plot points, etc. Absorbing the narrative of a movie isn't so far off from that. I just took my kid to see Inside Out 2 earlier this week, and have a pretty clear recollection (sans whatever gaps I'm incapable of being aware of) of all of it.
[0] I think, but am not sure, that it strengthens my point here to note that people who visualize the story as they read it are nearly certainly visualizing it _differently_, but that almost never poses a problem for engaging with others about it.
Thanks, those are great points. After more thought, I somewhat agree I was overweighing the value of visualizing things in my mind. I don't know if there are people out there that can actually conjure tastes of food as part of remembering something. I only remember food tastes through language descriptions like sweet, salty etc. So maybe that's analogous to aphantasia. It's just that we're talking about the sense of sight versus taste. From a practical standpoint, there isn't much value even if I could taste something as part of a memory. It would make the memory even stronger and more vivid though.
> I don't know if there are people out there that can actually conjure tastes of food as part of remembering something. I only remember food tastes through language descriptions like sweet, salty etc.
For what it's worth, I can't conjure anything other than a few fleeting details for something visual. When I manage to surface a distinct image, it vanishes pretty fast. But (if I can remember it) I can "imagine" the taste of a specific chocolate bar, a sound (particularly voices) or how something feels to touch very distinctly. I'd say "accurately" as well, but that's hard to gauge.
Interestingly, I think my tendency to visualize makes me a slow reader. I can suppress it with effort, but typically my pace slows down to let me imagine observing the story.
I don't think that's part of "visualization" itself. I don't visualize a scene, but I still can take a long time if it's interesting or has a lot of detail.
I remember reading the Lord of the Rings books and it has really long descriptions of the scenery and sometime it took me a very long time to read it, just so I can get all the details. In other parts I read over it as fast as I could to get on with the story.
Perhaps, but for me, it's more like having to slow down to let the scene play out in my mind. But that's really interesting to hear about your experience.
Movies and TV shows are a really exciting topic. But first to your questions:
You are totally right, I can't recall a scene from a movie with all the details. I couldn't paint it, as I'm not seeing it like when it's right in front of me (in the movie). But I could definitely describe it and it will sound indistinguishable from what you would describe, the difference is that I'm remembering the description and you are remembering the scene itself.
Rewatching a movie is the same, I remember seeing the movie and I also remember all the scenes (the ones I remember); you might remember a scene by color and "images", I remember it by description or concept. But the result is the same: I remember having seen it.
A really nice perk (for me) is that I don't remember the individual actors. I remember the role played, but not who has played it. It's not like I cannot distinguish actors from another, but I just don't remember actor X played this and that role. I really don't understand the problems with changing actors in sequels, it's the same role; maybe played a little bit different, but still the same role.
I know a total of maybe 5 to 10 actors which I recognize among different movies.
A good way to think about what it is like to be color blind in a world where others see more colors is to consider tetrachromats. From Google:
> "People with tetrachromacy have a fourth cone in their retinas, called a tetrachromat, that allows them to see up to 100 million colors, compared to the average person's 1 million. This extra cone gives them access to new color ranges within the yellow and green spectrum, which can create millions of new color variations. "
I can only imagine how much more vibrant the world looks to them in terms of sunrise and sunset, walking in a forest, etc.
That's said, I imagine if you rewatched a recent movie, you would recollect every scene during the act of rewatching, just like someone without aphantasia.
For anyone who has a hard time believing this condition is real (because I initially did) here's how I think about it. When I first learned there are people who are color blind, I was stunned and skeptical that I could be looking at a certain colored flower and someone next to me didn't see the same reality. I can also easily believe that someone can imagine something in their mind way more vividly than I can. I'm willing to bet you could do an experiment where you give various people step by step instructions to do origami in their mind, draw a top-down view of the final shape, and there'd be a wide range of accuracy even among people without aphantasia.