Tetronian comments on How is your mind different from everyone else's? - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 05 December 2011 08:38AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 05 December 2011 05:21:09PM *  3 points [-]

I do this too, but only for faces. I have detailed mental images of things like buildings and circuit diagrams, but I don't have good mental pictures of people's faces. I don't have too much trouble recognizing people (though I suspect I am below-average at it), but I can't visualize or describe anyone's face when I'm not near them.

Likewise, when I'm reading fiction, I don't have clear mental pictures of what the characters' faces look like.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 05 December 2011 05:52:10PM 2 points [-]

I have very limited ability to visualize images or to imagine/remember sounds.

The weird thing is that sometimes with fiction, I'll feel as though I know what a character looks like, even though I can't visualize it. This is strong with Tolkien (the movie hobbits were wrong, wrong, wrong), while with Bujold, I simply have no idea what the characters look like. Having a sensory experience with fiction is so rare it seems like a miracle.

At the same time, if fiction has too few sensory cues, I'm apt to feel disconnected and uninterested. This is especially notable with military science fiction-- and it may be related to my having more problems with telling people apart if they're wearing uniforms.

I've wondered if what fiction people like has something to do with brainwave similarities between the author and the readers.

Comment author: bbleeker 06 December 2011 07:47:11PM *  0 points [-]

The weird thing is that sometimes with fiction, I'll feel as though I know what a character looks like, even though I can't visualize it. This is strong with Tolkien (the movie hobbits were wrong, wrong, wrong

So they were, and Galadriel was even more wrong.