are aphantasia artists just ngmi from the get-go? what are some tips for artists with aphantasia?
right now all I can give them is "always draw from reference" which is sad because most of the fun comes from drawing from imagination, but these people have no imagination, due to either some sort of genetic factor or some upbringing factor (mental illness, trauma).
what is there to give them beisdes "always draw from reference"?

>>7596865 (OP)
i think its pretty valuable to get comfortable with basic forms and how to rotate and manipulate them. you can try to remember "blueprints" or "recipes" of form configurations to construct the things you wanna draw. maybe you cant visualize a whole person but you can try to remember where to put some boxes and cylinders to make one, same goes for any object or animal

>>7596865 (OP)
Proko has aphantasia and he made it big time through many years of formal education, memorization, practice and studies. He can draw any human figure no problem, but he's cooked when he's tasked to draw something he hasn't studied like exotic animals. He knows exactly what's a Kangaroo but he can't picture one in his mind.

thanks yall

>>7596865 (OP)
Aphantasia is a myth.
The studies on it are extremely flawed and rely on self-reporting or presuming that everyone's life is the same and requries the same cognitive tasks.

The fact is, humans are intellectual misers. If you try to imagine something that you have obsessed to some degree over, such that it has great meaning and emotional weight in its form to you - something you may have only shared with your closest friends - then you are much more likely to be able to picture it. And then you can picture it with other things, and so on. Even if you struggle to imagine things absent it still.

Commonly-claimed "aphantasia" is a combination of a lack of practiced skill, lack of dedication to stopping and SEEING enough to form a mental library, oftentimes some form of trauma, and a huge helping of self-perception with regards to what is "normal."

Half of you fucks who claim you can't imagine an apple have not so much as held one in your hand in years.

>>7597130
And by "intellectual misers" I mean that your brain is going to take the path of least resistance every. Single. time. Thinking takes calories and you are evolved to be a hairless tool-using ape in some form of hostile, food-poor environment.

Unless you consciously try to make yourself use a different mode of thinking, whatever is the easiest way will be the default. Software engineers and mathematicians commonly "have aphantasia" because their daily life is filled with abstract process and systems thinking, so imagining things in that sense comes easier to them. This also is why imagining shit is harder if you are stressed, tired, or hungry.
And lots of people are fuckin stressed, tired or hungry! Why would your brain use calories on imagining funny imagees when it can reserve those for threat response?

Oh and the definition of aphantasia shifts over time. Being unable to imagine anything would be horribly detrimental to survival at all, you would die from stupidity before 4 years old if you had it.
>Nonono, it doesn't mean TOTAL lack of ability to imagine just-
Defining "aphantasia" as a specific, measurable, independently-verifiable and diagnosible phenomenon has not been done. All of the research on it, which is by a scant few people, has the baked in assumption that it exists a priori. It is unfalsifiable.

You may as well believe that the CIA is stealing your imagination or holding your mind's eye shut. Oh wait, that wouldn't give you the ability to claim you have a disability so your art can be a "story of overcoming adversity" in a manner that requires absolutely nothing from you except for being treated like an NPC by /pol/tards

>>7597130
>>7597139
>>7597154
you're so full of shit. its a concept thats been mentioned as early as the 1800s by Francis Galton (who noted variations in mental imagery among scientists).

also aside from shitposting on 4chan I have attempted to teach many of my friends how to draw and have discovered that several of them have it, even one who is a bus driver who could not draw a bus from memory, or could very rudamentarily construct one as if it was drawn by a 2 year old. and then there's the furry coom artist who "made it" by copying references or bases for every drawing, but cannot visualize anything. in fact they don't realize aphantasia is a thing until they learn that other people can in fact see shit in their heads.

>>7597130
>Aphantasia is a myth.
cool source brah. definitely gives your opinion more credibility than the mountains of peer reviewed studies brah.

>>7597166
if you couldn't visualize you'd be blind, sight and imagination use the same circuitry
from what I've read, the issue is your brain misfiring, you are trying to use verbal thinking to activate visuals where you're supposed to use sensory thinking

>>7597130
Nah, some peoples brains just work differently. Like how some people can't conceptualize that very fact.

>>7596865 (OP)
why is he beatboxing?

>>7597154
Based. I would only add to the image that people like mathematicians who claim it are basically using alternate pathways because they're just more developed from their profession, so it requires less mental effort comparatively.

>>7597166
>its a concept thats been mentioned as early as the 1800s by Francis Galton
Not an argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model
>even one who is a bus driver who could not draw a bus from memory, or could very rudamentarily construct one as if it was drawn by a 2 year old
That isn't related much at all. See picrel. Use of something like a bus on the daily does not mean storing and retaining the visual information of its form. In his case, this would especially be since he is inside the bus most of the time, and the extreme familiarity with the same route would reduce the effort expended on storage to observation of symbols and heightened awareness of unfamiliarity.

>>7597183
>cool source brah. definitely gives your opinion more credibility than the millions of imam over the years who say allah is supreme
Argumentum ad populum + Argument from authority, moreso that is an argument in favor of institutional failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
As stated: The premise that aphantasia exists is assumed to be true a priori, it is not questioned. The definition also continually shifts.
Simple refutation of the pupil test: The pupil dillation test isn't valid as plenty of people have 0 reason to imagine anything brighter or darker than would be necessary. It's extraneous information to remember and recall unpleasant experiences vs just recalling everything in neutral lighting.

Presuming an unfalsifiable concept exists a priori is not science, it's religion.

>>7597225
The core is that IF they were working so differently as to be truly aphantasic, THEN they would be intellectual cripples.

>>7597352
>>7597130
>>7597139
fucking BASED
I was going to come in here and shit on this gay social contagion once again, I've linked that same bicycle drawing experiment before as proof that this whole thing is a dumb reddit meme.
I get fed up with the sheer stupidity of art communities lie /ic/ after so many years. Just the constant uncritical, unserious learning theory, and the thinking in terms of metaphors that have only existed for about 50 years. You gonna "level up" your art skills, huh retard? Rotate the apple like 3D modeling software?
You are NOT a computer. You are hairless chimp that evolved to walk upright a couple million years ago. Art is symbolic creativity - it's thinking symbolically, abstractly. It's inherent to it. Stop thinking your goal is be meatspace Blender. You motherfucker!

i for one, am a schizo who can visualize. what about you guys?

I don’t understand, so people don’t play dolls in their head before falling asleep?
You don’t see the dolls you just hear them or what?

>>7597130
Youre a fucking retard. It is absolutely a thing. Source: me & gf.

She is hyperphant, can picture shit with eyes open as if its literally in front of her, even meaningless shit like apples. I am aphant, cant picture anything in mind in such a way that i "visually see it".

But i know what its *supposed* to be like, because I *do* have vivid dreams. As does my gf, who says her ability to "see" shit she imagines is very similar to how it is in a dream, i.e, like its right there in front of her. I can see shit involuntarily (dream) but *not* voluntarily (imagination) the way she (and most people) can do both (with varying results). Aka, aphantasia.

Tl;dr youre a close-minded midwit and should kys

>>7597534
>my gf speshul
die

>>7597130
Very true. Imagination is a muscle. If you've never tried to picture stuff in your head (because your brain has been slow-roasted by technology from a young age) then you will have trouble doing it until you practice.

Clinical aphantasia is also vanishingly rare in the general population, well under 1% of people actually have it.

Aphantasia is a meme.

>>7597537
Since youre projecting your lonliness like the incel you are, ill give a different example

Friend is not hyperphant, he is probably much closer to what would be "average" on the visualization spectrum. He says the same shit, just to a lesser extent as gf in original example. Can picture shit for the most part as if hes seeing it, or at least gets some symbolized version of an image in his mind. Is baffled i dont see shit.

Ive asked them and countless others their subjective experiences. "You are sure youre *seeing* something. Like its overlayed or like a dream, but you are *seeing* it?" And they say yes. I do not see anything.

The gf hyperphant thing wasnt a "muh gf speshul", it was meant to point out the largest possible contrast that i have direct experience of. But my fault for thinking you autistic virgins would be able to look past "gf"

>>7597557
You are genuinely a stupid person

>>7597534
>>7597557
You completely missed the point and I already addressed the reason your anecdotes and asking people don't mean what you assume.

Your struggle to imagine something is likely related to your struggle to imagine that you could be wrong.

>>7597565
Kys

>>7597567
>your annecdotes and asking people dont mean what you assume
Ill make it simple. I ask "when you close your eyes to picture something, can be whatever, what do you see? And when you say you "see" it do you mean actually visually, as if it was a picture or maybe even in front of you?"
Response i get "yes im imagining x, and yes its like its right there. In fact i dont even need to close my eyes"
Whereas if you asked the same prompt to me, i would fail at "picture anything" its just the back of my eyelids/black.

Regardless of if the persons imaginary visuals are accurate or not, the fact they report "seeing" anything at all is a wildly different experience from not getting any visual imagery at all.

>your struggle to imagine something is likely related to your struggle to imagine that you could be wrong.

I can "imagine", i cant "see" shit that i imagine. Might be better to use the word conceptualize. But no, my "struggle" is that i just physically dont experience voluntary visual imaginations.

>>7596865 (OP)
these howie threads are getting more snd more elaborate

>>7597567
>>7597567
Also there is literal scientific evidence to support the existence of aphantasia.

Neural scans, tests of physiological responses to imagined stimuli between visualizers vs aphants (like the pupil response to an imagined bright light between normies vs aphants, with brain scans)

As much as you want to ragebait, its already scientific consensus that its real. So you get a kys too

>>7597583
That's the thing though, aphantasia is so ingrained in a personal perspective that you could be misinterpreting what everyone is saying. No the apple isn't "right in front of me", the apple isn't there. I'm not conjuring it up like a screensaver floating in front of my vision. If it did, humanity would have gone full schizo and never seen the saber-toothed cats rushing for our jugulars.
I could imagine the apple sitting on the desk in front of me, but my eyes will never show an apple that's not there. Here's a tip, use your memory. I can only imagine an apple because I've seen an apple before. I've never been to Finland, so I can't make an accurate visual without looking at photographs of it.

This idiot normalfag is currently doo-dooing personal anecdotes all over the thread because anons have rightly pointed out this meme illness is unfalsifiable. There's a total lack of rigor in what the definition of it even is, and it's unclear what aspects of it are (probably) being obfuscated by language itself. For one thing, it's likely that not everyone can accurately interrogate and report their own thought processes in the first place; some people are literally just stupid.
Yet, the stories. The personal accounts. He will take Becky and Joe at their word, and expect you to honor it. He probably believes in horoscopes, too. He is the problem with the internet.

>>7597588
>the pupil response
I already fucking addressed this you absolute mongoloid.
See here: >>7597352
>Simple refutation of the pupil test: The pupil dillation test isn't valid as plenty of people have 0 reason to imagine anything brighter or darker than would be necessary. It's extraneous information to remember and recall unpleasant experiences vs just recalling everything in neutral lighting.

>>7597605
He also is unable to read and keeps spamming the same shit that was already addressed.
I have had conversations and dug into this pretty deep for a topic like this. It started as a "waitaminute" after I noticed a chink in the reasoning and going with the flow, but the more I looked into the claims the more it unraveled.

That's why I made those essayposts earlier in the thread - preemptively addressing a lot of the common retorts and setting up a situation where you can tell who is being stupid by their lack of reading.

First of all, if you have aphantasia you can learn to draw just fine by memorizing construction

And second, the anons arguing against aphantasia are arguing in bad faith by making a caricature of the aphantasia studies:
>>7597130
>The studies on it are extremely flawed and rely on self-reporting or presuming that everyone's life is the same and requries the same cognitive tasks.

Notice that he doesnt even try to provide examples of such flaws. It doesnt have a whole survey, but a few examples of old and new studies wouldnt hurt, right?

This one is a good general article about aphantasia research, from 2022
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mila.12432

Open article
>and rely on self-reporting
Any anon whos reading this, you can refute this in seconds by searching "aphantasia" + "neuroimaging" on google scholar
Seriously just do it lol
First result is a really nice one

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=es&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=aphantasia+neuroimaging&btnG=&oq=aphantasia+neuro

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1093/texcom/tgab035

>>7597139
>Oh and the definition of aphantasia shifts over time.
Some things are just hard to define. This explains nothing.

Aphantasia is an impairment to the ability to conciously generate visual imagery. Dream visualization remains.

>All of the research on it, which is by a scant few people, has the baked in assumption that it exists a priori. It is unfalsifiable.
And another strawman
seriously anons, try at least skimming over the studies and youll see that its not that simple. Its more nuanced than that.
>>7597154
This images recognizes Hyperphantasia (calls them autismos), but denies aphantasia.
Is it really harder to believe that there are people with impaired visualization skills than it is yo believe that there are people who can reproduce a movie 1:1 in their minds?

>Defining "aphantasia" as a specific, measurable, independently-verifiable and diagnosible phenomenon has not been done.
Because its a complex topic, same could be said of studying consciousness.

>Being unable to imagine anything would be horribly detrimental to survival at all, you would die from stupidity before 4 years old if you had it.

Lots of people with conditions that are more threatening to their survival, survive for a long time thanks to... well, the help of others. This proves nothing.

>>7597352
Nothing good ever comes from a fallacy brah

>The premise that aphantasia exists is assumed to be true a priori, it is not questioned.
From what Ive read the studies usually go like this:
>Okay we have some people who say they have aphantasia.
>Lets see how the perform compared to people who say they can visualize just fine
>Okay we came up with some sort of test
>We tested the participants and people with aphantasia scored differently that average people in such such area. They scored the same in such such area.
>More studies on this area are needed
>Another group of people uses a different test. Finds that aphantasia people score different on such such area

>>7597352
for example:

>Although Galton recognized in the 1880s that some individuals lack visual imagery, this phenomenon was mostly neglected over the following century. We recently coined the terms “aphantasia” and “hyperphantasia” to describe visual imagery vividness extremes, unlocking a sustained surge of public interest. Aphantasia is associated with subjective impairment of face recognition and autobiographical memory. Here we report the first systematic, wide-ranging neuropsychological and brain imaging study of people with aphantasia (n=24), hyperphantasia (n=25), and midrange imagery vividness (n=20). Despite equivalent performance on standard memory tests, marked group differences were measured in autobiographical memory and imagination, participants with hyperphantasia outperforming controls who outperformed participants with aphantasia.

This is how most studies go. How should it be done?
Taking people who affirm to have aphantasia and studying them to see how they score against people who say they have hyperphantasia and people with normal imagery and comparing the results is assuming aphantasia is true? Isnt it just letting the results speak for themselves?

>Presuming an unfalsifiable concept exists a priori is not science, it's religion.

Cool reddit quote. Upvoted.
Again, fallacy brahs rarely make a good post.

>>7597375
>was going to come in here and shit on this gay social contagion once again, I've linked that same bicycle drawing experiment before as proof that this whole thing is a dumb reddit meme.

So you guys are arguing in bad faith just to own the tumblerinas and redditors who might use this as a form of victimism.
Meh im done with this board.

>>7597742
To the extent that aphantasia is "a thing," researchers seem to agree that it's vanishingly rare in the general population - less than 1%. The problem is in how online idiots talk about aphantasia. It's treated like a personality style, like being an introvert rather than an extrovert, or a "standard" type of neurodivergence, like autism.
There is nothing wrong with your dumb brain, other than it being dumb. You're PROBABLY normal. And you can't (shouldn't be able to) self-diagnose yourself with these retarded meme conditions, no more than you can diagnose yourself with autism, ADHD, or bipolar disorder. If the thing was treated in proportion to its frequency and relevance, it would probably be far less contentious.
But no, that's too boring. Gotta post that stupid apple-in-the-heads picture and cause mass hysteria and confusion. That's what makes it a social contagion.
If you fall for it, you're cut from the same cloth is gender freaks trying to cause confusion there (even though gender dysphoria is probably real, but RARE).

>>7597672
Neuroimaging doesn't mean shit when you're not accounting for the immense variety in peoples' lives and experiences and you cannot actually see if the lack of recall is caused by the person or some kind of inherent flaw.

>>7597724
>Okay we came up with some sort of test
You need to be coming up with criteria FIRST and then testing people FOR aphantasia without letting them know, because they can trick themselves into embodying the idea.

>>7597742
>Taking people who affirm to have aphantasia
Not how it works. You have to actually test them FOR aphantasia and you need to discern if this is something that is trainable.

Which it most likely is, see all the people who thought "I can't draw" and then they get an actual-good teacher who can help them make the relevant mental connections, or how there are courses rich people put their kids in to make their IQ go up. Or the Flynn Effect in general.

me >>7597784
>caused by the person
Caused by the person's LIFE EXPERIENCES
Fucking typos.

>>7597130
>The studies on it are extremely flawed and rely on self-reporting or presuming that everyone's life is the same and requires the same cognitive tasks.

well for a start, we don't have any good ways to test any kind of qualia anon. Does that just mean conscious experience is a myth? Are colors myths since we dont have any good studies that the red you experience is the same as the red i experience? To use that stance to then claim the subjective experience of "aphantasia" doesn't exist is disingenuous at best.

>>7597154
your meme graph shows that we accept photographic memory and generally just the higher end of a visualization spectrum. Why is it then wrong to assume that the opposite is also true anon? If most people just get a vague mental flash, some get a full on mental picture, why is it strange for some to have 0 mental imagery at all?

>>7597352
Not really sure what this image is supposed to be arguing? 4 likely average people produced average rough sketches of a bike, with varying levels of inaccuracy. What can we take from this other than none of them are artists and none of them have photographic memory? And how does this supposedly disprove that some people dont experience mental imagery?

>>7597784
theres a difference between lack of recall and lack of reported subjective experience of mental imagery anon.

>>7598355
>To use that stance to then claim the subjective experience of "aphantasia" doesn't exist is disingenuous at best.
No it isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
This is just the "prove god doesn't exist" fallacious argument except twisted up. You have to prove aphantasia does exist, and there is no evidence of this.
You might as well just believe otherkin when they say they have a dragon spirit or some other nonsense. It's the same "subjective experience" after all!

>Why is it then wrong to assume that the opposite is also true anon?
You cannot prove a negative. You CAN demonstrate rare cases of photographic memory, but we cannot truly know how many people have it because it relies on other skills (namely, artistic skills) and those skills are not evenly or widely distributed.
>Not really sure what this image is supposed to be arguing?
Refuting the other anon's claim that (simplified) "a bus driver not being able to draw a bus means he is aphantasic".

You are very very bad at using logical reasoning.

Saying aphantasia doesn't exist at all is completely dumb. But I think that most aphantasic people are not completely aphantasic. Same way with how some people might have better memories and memorize how something looks more quickly. Outside of the freaks of nature on either end that are either Chris chan tier retarded or some sort of savant, it gives you a slight advantage/handicap but it comes down to practice mostly, looking at lots of stuff, and drawing a lot to get better.

>>7597154
the text says
>We all see the same brief flashes of images when imagining things
but I don't, not normally. I have to be in a state of near delirium due to sleep deprivation or hangover for that to happen, ergo aphantasia exists.

>>7596865 (OP)
>aphantasia
not a real thing

>>7596865 (OP)
plenty of talented and esteemed artists have said they have it. Glen Keane being one notable one.

>>7599724
>I have to be in a state of near delirium due to sleep deprivation or hangover for that to happen
You don't have aphantasia, you are just using other processes normally. When your brain is exhausted those other ways become more difficult, and your brain uses the underdeveloped visualization process instead.

>>7598453
>Saying aphantasia doesn't exist at all is completely dumb.
Saying it exists at all without strong evidence to prove it is completely cargo cultish. Moving it from "can't imagine" to "have difficulty" but maintaining the assumption that this is some inherent deficiency just shows an emotional investment in the concept.
>Chris Chan
CWC's main issue is being delusional as a giga cope for his fucked up life. He has claimed to have astral projected into CWCville. Someone with total aphantasia would be, if they survived to adulthood, an invalid, not a lolcow.

a trick to train your mind's eye is to imagine (with eyes open not closed) a scenery of your choice, then imagine you're putting correcting glasses over your eyes to see the scenery more accurately, then imagine you're putting correcting glasses over your correcting glasses and so on until the scenery (or whatever image you're trying to visualize) becomes crystal clear. basically by doing so you're shifting your focus from your eyes to your mind's eye. the reason many of you think you're incapable of imagination is because you associate seeing with your physical eyes, once you've trained to detach yourself from this belief you'll understand that seeing exists independently of your eyes (see dreams), and thus seeing with your mind becomes easier.
this is why it is important to visualize with your eyes open, to remind yourself that they don't matter since visualisation happens in the mind, by closing your eyes you're ironically giving them too much attention which diverges you from the true goal of visualisation which is to train to see without you're eyes.

good luck to you

>>7596865 (OP)
>aphantasia
That word should be banned in this board. Tired of these faggots.

>>7603910
>You don't have aphantasia, you are just using blub blub blub
I can't willingly imagine things. How does that not make me have aphantasia? I already explained that I can have visuals appear from what I'm thinking under special conditions, so I do have a frame of reference.

>>7606925
>I can't willingly imagine things. How does that not make me have aphantasia?
If you fall over every time you try to ride a bike but you can stably do so if someone pushes you on your down a hill, that doesn't mean you're incapable of riding a bike.

You just are struggling to access the skill because you aren't used to it. You can ask someone you trust and who knows you deeply to list things they think you're really emotionally connected to in a passionare way, then read off the list 1 at a time and try to imagine such a thing with your eyes closed.

>>7607377
Your analogy fucking sucks. I can’t ride a bike unless I’m tied to a rope to the South Pole; am I gonna travel there every time I want to do it? That would be highly impractical.
To borrow a term from blindness, I legally have aphantasia, because for all intents and purposes it doesn’t work like it does for normal people. Maybe it would start to work if I dropped acid, who knows, don’t have access to it.