Douglas_Knight3 comments on Words as Mental Paintbrush Handles - Less Wrong

17 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 March 2008 11:58PM

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Comment author: Douglas_Knight3 02 March 2008 06:26:58AM 1 point [-]

Yvain and Lee Corbin, I tend to agree with Eric Schwitzgebel (which is how I found the Galton paper) that the difference in claims of visualizing ability is due to changing norms, not changing abilities. He's too quick to discount the possibility of real change, but professed inability of scientists in Galton's day is striking. I don't think that demographic has been adequately surveyed today, but I don't think they're as different from the general public as they were 50 or 100 years ago.

In particular, I don't think there was an early psychologist who couldn't visualize, as I wouldn't expect that to be so early as to have such a widespread affect on the scientists Galton knew. That is, I doubt a psychologist would have an impact on non-psychologists' self-assessment.

Also, I think people overrate the importance of visualization to navigation, blindfold chess, and other things where it seems intuitively important.

paper linked above: "How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Visual Imagery" (2002), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9, no. 5-6, 35-53.