This is a thought experiment "Ball on a Table" for detecting whether someone has Aphantasia. What do you see when you perform this experiment? - eviltoast

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?


  • asudox@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    I only knew the gender of the person and what kind of ball it was. I didn’t imagine the other things at my first try.

    • KittenBiscuits@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      I imagined all the details for the items, but didn’t pay attention to the person. I don’t like looking at people’s faces.

      • moakley@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        My person was like a disembodied arm. Like if pushing the ball off the table were a game on the Wii, which I guess would mean it was in first person.