blinry

What color was the ball?

What did the person that pushed the ball look like?

What size was the ball?

What about the table, what shape was it? What was it made of?

Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/size, etc. after being asked these questions?

This is #aphantasia test. Would be super interested in your answers!

I already visualized all these things in detail
13%
I had a vague concept of some of these things
49.1%
I assigned the properties after being asked
17.3%
I can't tell, after being asked
20.7%
Poll ended at .
Feb 8, 2024 at 9:56pmWeb
Show threadhalcy​ Feb 8, 2024
@blinry red ball, large (about soccer ball), table and person I made up after being asked and it‘s a stick figure (thick black lines, like in those old flash animations), table brown in the same style
Show threadstodarahodanFeb 8, 2024
@blinry i imagined Ronnie O’Sullivan at a snooker table
Show threadMarco Feb 8, 2024
@blinry
Everything was clear in my mind.
Is it serious, doc? 😁
Show threadNicoFeb 8, 2024

@blinry I did assign a color and size to the ball and shape and material to the table before reading the questions but the person was a generic human shaped silhouette without any specific characteristics.

My prototype ball is always read and tennis ball sized and my prototype table is always round and made out of wood.

Show threadNoam writesFeb 8, 2024
@blinry Interesting. The size of ball was clear, and it was a round wooden table. But no idea what the person looked like. Not sure about ball colour.
Show threadJohannes HoffFeb 8, 2024

@blinry I visualized the color and size of ball and table, but almost nothing about the person, except the hand vaguely. I guess I imagined it in first person?

Oh, and the ball was first a red billiard ball on a billiard table, then changed into a soccer ball on a black table, all during the first paragraph 😀

Show threadRonflaixFeb 8, 2024
@blinry Shiny red ball, like a pool ball, I was focused on the ball, so the person somehow had no face, maybe a white shirt? Wooden rectangular table with wooden mostly varnished or a similar polish as it was shiny.
Except the person which I tried to "remember" a bit more while reading the questions, the rest was imagined as presented.
EDIT : Also I believe I imagined a spotlight lighting the table, the rest of the room was pitch black, but I don't know if I did thought that then
Show threadPantheraOncaFeb 8, 2024
@blinry just for extra context I'm one of those people who can visualize multiple spinning apples, but only visualized some details here, so I guess there's a relevancy factor to it, for me?
Show threadEli the BeardedFeb 8, 2024
@blinry
My mind doesn't assign a single value to any of those things but a rapidly changing variety of options.
Show threadskalabyrinthFeb 8, 2024

@blinry I had a rough size of the ball. That was all. The ball didn't even necessarily move because I didn't know about the friction.

When I read the questions I was like... what? Where should I know? Is that some kind of aphantasia test again?

What shall I choose? The second, since the ball had some kind of size?

1/2

Show threadskalabyrinthFeb 8, 2024

@blinry

I have aphantasia. I am a little annoyed that it is called that. Since:

1. I write fantasy books, I am very much capable of making things up.

2. But I only would if I was asked to make something up, which you didn't.

3. My inability to imagine things is mainly visual. If you ask me to listen to a concert in my had, I can.

2/2

Show threadskalabyrinthFeb 8, 2024
@blinry (I am not mad at you for this poll. I think it just would be even more interesting, if visual imagination woulnd't be the only imagination people went for.)
Show threadfiveopFeb 8, 2024
@blinry Answer depends on the object. Table had fixed shape and material, hence color. Ballʼs relative size was fixed, though I think I did not assign it a color. The person was just a hand and wrist (I think, because it was me in my imagination).
Show threadDaniel BohrerFeb 9, 2024
@blinry interesting, that's the second time I've heard about aphantasia, and the first time was just a few days ago on a woodworking YouTube channel.
Show threadSusaFeb 9, 2024
@blinry
I am happy you asked. It shows me that I am not the only person imaging things without a precise form. Thank you!
Show threadAbhinav 🌏Feb 9, 2024
@blinry I imagined a small gray ball, on medium height wooden table, being pushed by a hand. It was all monochrome, so no colour.
Show threadRodboticFeb 9, 2024

@blinry i choose vague because didn't visualize the person. But then i realized i was the person who pushed the ball, of course i didn't see the person!

The ball was blue, dense foam. The table was a wooden card table, with a singular light overhead.
The ball rolled off the table.

Show threaddasNessieFeb 9, 2024
@blinry Most of the answers are "that was outside of my field of view":
1. The ball didn't have a color, but it was a firm plastic one
2. I only imagined a torso and hand. The person was white and wearing a colorless long-sleeve shirt
3. about 10 cm in diameter (that one is very clear for me!)
4. The table was wooden, but I was focused on the ball and didn't see the tables edges, so I don't know the shape.
Show threadAberDerBartFeb 9, 2024

@dasnessie @blinry 10cm plastic ball, slightly yellow-ish. Wooden table about 120*100cm, tapered legs with square profile with rounded corners about 8*8cm at the top, 4*4cm and nearly round at the bottom. The legs are slightly inset from the tabletop, about 3cm. At the underside of the tabletop there are struts about 3cm wide and 8-10cm high, connecting the legs, meeting them in the middle of their sides.

1/2

Show threadAberDerBartFeb 9, 2024

@dasnessie @blinry I did not imagine anything about the person, just the ball being accelerated.

2/2

Show threadRadgrydFeb 9, 2024
@blinry Dark blue ball, a dark haired man, ball about the size of a tennis ball, wooden table with 4 corners. I already knew before being asked. 🤓
Show threadKikiFeb 9, 2024
@blinry
some things were already specific (rectangular table made of dark brown wood, size like a usual 4 person dining table, red ball), some were kinda vague and only became fixed after asking (ball made from a hard, shiny, rubber-like material, tennis ball size, placed at ~30% of the table length-wise and centered width-wise, being pushed towards the middle), and some are still completely undefined (the person).
Show threadKikiFeb 9, 2024

@blinry
also, the scene takes place in a mostly dark room, lit by a single spotlight above the table. And it kinda looks like a 3d animation made with something like blender. But I'm not sure about the camera perspective, I think it moves around?

I overlooked the "someone walks up to the table" part initially, the ball was just being pushed *somehow*... and now it feels wrong if I try to assign *any* properties to that person in my head.

Show threadKikiFeb 9, 2024

@blinry
If I force myself to imagine how the person looks, and make it not feel weird... that also makes the ball change O.o

It's a thin white guy with short, dark brown/grey hair, wearing a white or light grey tracksuit with black details. His face is still kinda undefined. The ball is now larger, air-filled, and made from stripes of white leather, like a volleyball or a soccer ball. And it's moving in a different direction O.o

Show threadskalabyrinthFeb 9, 2024
@flauschzelle @blinry I love this so much! <3
Show threadJune T. MichaelFeb 9, 2024
@blinry I assigned the properties after being asked and kept them a minimum (stick figure, abstract table in light grey, pink ball and a diagram that measures stuff moving alongside the ball. Everything 2D).
Show threadodo2063Feb 9, 2024
@blinry e) What do the questions have to do with the physics concept of a person pushing a ball?
Show threadThree plus or minus fiveFeb 14, 2024
@blinry
Before being asked I had assigned a size to the ball and a rough magnitude of the force applied, since this was identical to a physics question. I also made an initial feeling the table was lab bench height.
Show threadXayoFeb 14, 2024

@blinry "it depends" … the ball was kinda well-defined (red, smooth surface, roughly tennis-ball size, mid-level specular surface, plastic-y), but "someone" was just "a person" (not really visual, more like a variable that was just declared)

{…}

Show threadXayoFeb 14, 2024

@blinry {…}

After asking the ball stayed pretty much the same and the somewhat … didn't change much, the vagueness got translated into a blurry undefined roughly person-ish-shaped grey something.

The table … was just a fictional plane. (I didn't really think about it until now. It just evolved into a "likely wooden" plate of unknown dimensions.)

Pretty fun to think about what our brains do when facing such a situation :D

Show threadaiyionFeb 16, 2024

@blinry Now that it ended.

No visuals whatsoever. No properties either.

Imagine dark fog; you know what is happening based on your experience: a pushed ball starts moving unless to heavy.
But you won't ever see something.

Doesn't hinder my ability to dream though; that works perfectly fine and in great detail.

For some time I exercised vivid dreaming, that worked as well, but I feel like I did not rest as well as usually, so I ended it again.

But without sleeping I won't see anything but what's in front of my eyes.