Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

No, but what I'm describing is that I have a phenomenological experience of both non-clear images and clear images.

It was in response to the complaint that the "Vividness of Visual Imagery" test is ambiguous, because people can't decide whether their visualization is clear or not. I'm saying that, for a person with a good ability at visualizing, the distinction is fairly clear.

And it's not just fuzzy memory, the fuzzy memory causes a non-clear picture. But I can't transfer my phenomenological experience to you, so you'll either have to accept that some people can have both clear or non-clear imagery, or not.

In answer to your question, I can certainly produce a mental image of an imagined barista. I can imagine very fine details in, say, the handlebar mustache I invent. Yes, those details will probably have come from reality, but I don't know from where, and I can visualize it very clearly if I choose to.

In answer to a question you didn't ask, when I read books I rarely have a detailed image of a character. They're kind of faceless people, roughly sketched. I actually discussed this last week with my either-year-old, and she had the exact same experience, but had never really stopped to think about it. (Like what I was saying before about the nose missing not being weird.)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: