this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
258 points (98.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

33594 readers
1405 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

This is more of me trying to understand how people imagine things, as I almost certainly have Aphantasia and didn't realize until recently... If this is against community rules, please do let me know.

The original thought experiment was from the Aphantasia subreddit. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/g1e6bl/ball_on_a_table_visualization_experiment_2/

Thought experiment begins below.


Try this: Visualise (picture, imagine, whatever you want to call it) a ball on a table. Now imagine someone walks up to the table, and gives the ball a push. What happens to the ball?

Once you're done with the above, click to review the test questions:

  • What color was the ball?
  • What gender was the person that pushed the ball?
  • What did they look like?
  • What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?
  • What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?

And now the important question: Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/gender/size, etc. after being asked these questions?


(page 5) 49 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] squid_slime@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

I can only see still frames of random motions and detective gadget animated is the character who flicks the ball. The red ball which I then added a hammer and sickle moves with illustrative wooshes across the table bounces off of a wall into detective gadgets eye.

[–] abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago
  • black
  • male
  • nothing, it was just a hand pushing the ball
  • a ping pong ball
  • round, wood coloured, but thin like a metal coffee table.

I did have to think about how to put it into words, but the picture was fully formed before revealing the questions.

[–] Bobmighty@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

My ball was blue. It's one of those dog toy soft bouncy ones. Table is rectangular, wood, with a light colored stain that's well polished. A man casually slaps the ball and I hear the sound that type of ball makes as it bounces without much force. It bounced once off the table, then off the wall onto the floor where it did the dribble bounce off the tile in the kitchen until coming to rest on the carpet in the living room. None of what I see is related to my house.

If I really wanted to, I can vanish into this world I've built for the ball. I can get lost, staring out a window or something while not actually seeing anything because I'm in my head. I have hyperphantasia. It's seen more often than aphantasia, but it's not exactly common. It's very useful for creative endeavors, but has a lot of pitfalls; usually involving spacing out at inopportune times.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Fun experiment! It's amusing reading the comments.

::: spoiler spoiler Red ball pushed by an older gentleman, only imagined the hand and arm (wearing green long-sleeve but I'm not sure if I added the long sleeve after tbh, Im pretty sure I only imavined the hand). It was a red rubber ball, the kind you throw to a dog and it was on my kitchen counter (it has a distinct pattern).

Except for the log sleeve, I knew the rest without a doubt. Also, I didn't really see it fall, my angle was from across, I couldn't see the other side per say and I stopped imagining the moment it slipped off. I don't really remember a floor either.

[–] Dakkaface@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago
  • Reflective metallic silver, like a ball bearing.
  • genderless
  • a mannequin silhouette
  • about the size of a large grape? Like a superball.
  • my wooden dining room table, background and all.

The focus seemed to be on picturing the table and ball, and the person pushing it was irrelevant other than to provide motive force, so I didn't spend any time to fill in their details.

[–] OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

It puts the push in the little backpack it's wearing and thanks the person.

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I instantly saw a soccer ball on our dining room table. The push throws a glass of the table.

  • The color of the ball was white with black pattern like a classic soccer ball.

  • The gender was male.

  • I didn't see the person clearly, only the hands pushing.

  • Soccer ball

  • The table in my imagination was exactly our light brown beech wood dining room table.

The points described were instantly in my head. Only for the person itself I would need to try again.

What do i have if i can't stop the ball from falling? Like the person stops it from one side and it bounces to the other and fall that way.

I also have trouble stopping clocks from spinning in my imagination

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Color: red

Gender of pusher: undetermined

Looks of pusher: detached skinny white arm/hand

Size: roughly palm sized (full grown adult)

Table: wood, circular. Changed to black void with half pipe like pinball track upon being rolled.

After a quick visualization, that's what I got. Seeing the questions didn't change my answers

Edit: ball moved along the track for a moment before I stopped thinking about it, mostly since that train of thought made my brain switch to Sonic Spinball.

Table is wooden with a reddish brown stain and a glossy finish. The ball I picture is red rubber about the size of a grapefruit. "someone walks up to the table" I see a caucasian woman in her 30s with blonde hair in slacks, a long sleeve shirt and a sweater vest, she has slightly long nails. She pushes the ball with a flick of her fingers, it bounces/skips a couple times and then rolls off the end of the table. Sounds kind of like a tennis ball hitting the carpet, it bounces across the room, hits the baseboard on an adjacent wall and comes to a stop.

Everything above I wrote before even opening the follow-up questions. About the only thing I didn't think to mention is the table is a solid top rectangular dining table about 6 by 3 feet.

The "camera angles" might be slightly weird, at first I see the ball from a point of view about an inch off the table, then as it rolls off the table I "see" from my normal standing height but I only hear the ball bounce because the table is in the way, and I see it hit the wall and come to a stop from about kneeling height.

I see things photorealistically but I don't have peripheral vision. The way my mind parsed the sentence "someone walks up to the table and gives the ball a push" I processed "pushes the ball" first and I saw a woman's hand reach into my field of view to push the ball, then I processed "walks up to the table" and my field of view turned to look at her.

[–] ChexMax@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

So my ball was the ball from toy story on a round wooden kitchen table. Probably the table from my childhood home. So the ball is yellow with a blue stripe and a big red star. It has shading and a shadow. I switched it out for a golf ball, but that didn't seem right, so back to the bouncy ball from toy story, bigger than a baseball, smaller than a kickball. Because it's the ball from toy story, the young man pushing it is toy story animation style. I tried switching him out for a regular human, but it just seemed wrong so I couldn't. He goes with the ball.

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 1 points 9 months ago

Really interesting reading your follow up post in here. It's so incredible to hear about how differently people can think.

I imagined the scene in detail, but to pay attention to all the details I had to think back to it and examine each part of what I imagined, if that makes any sense.

I pictured a side camera angle with a white metal table and a light blue wall behind. The ball was a soccer ball, and it was pushed by a woman's hand wearing a gray knit sweater. Only the hand and forearm are "in frame". Her arm comes in from the right side and pushes the ball to the left, rolling it across the table.

[–] Jordan117@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I pictured a smooth red rubber ball about the size of a baseball on my kitchen table. The "person" was more of an invisible force, not explicitly male but definitely not female. That might be male bias, or subtly thinking of myself doing it (combined with playing too many physics engine video games where your disembodied self pushes things around).

All of this was pretty vague though, like I didn't really imagine the details of the room or the exact path of the ball other than knowing it would roll off and bounce on the floor.

[–] Itisreallyboring@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Color: greenish-blue

Person: male (I identify as male, the person kind of represents me, I guess)

Looks: Cannot see entirely, because "the camera" is very near. Blue pants.

Size of ball: Fits in one hand. The ball is made of a light material and will probably bounce on the floor.

Table: Very generic table. Beige, light brown.

I think, all of that I knew before reading the questions, I was able to answer the questions without really thinking about it.

[–] zaph@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

The ball is black, the table is black, the human is black. They're all just blobs I tell myself exist so I feel normal.

[–] ultranaut@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Ball color and size, and table shape and color were the only things I distinctly pictured, and the ball being deformed when pushed. Everything else was still sort of abstracted and not specifically visualized, and the table color changed to improve the contrast as I imagined the scene. If I stop and really focus on the scene I think I would fill in more specific details but at my pace of reading that's as far as it went. I think unless I have a reason to do otherwise I tend to visualize the minimum necessary.

[–] BlueSerendipity8@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

There is a community about aphantasia on Lemmy too: !aphantasia@lemmy.world

[–] viralJ@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

So I cheated a little, because I'm at a table right now, so I didn't visualise the table just the ball on the table. It was about tennis size, but no texture, kind of light blue shading into lilac. The person pushing it was really just a hand.

So sounds like the only work I did was imagining the ball. I wouldn't say I knew in advance, and I wouldn't say I chose what it looked like. It just appeared and it was light blue.

Edit: the ball started rolling when pushed, but not long enough for me to know whether it fell off the table or not. But the rolling was just a concept. I can visualise things, but I can't visualise motion. Which I only discovered recently.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Small tennis sized ball whitish color on a whitish classic rectangular kitchen table. But the table is zoomed in quite much at the start so you only see the overside of it.

No specific gender, very neutral. Like a videogame character with few colors, white mostly. Now the scene is zoomed back to let you see the person walk up to the table.

Did not know. But when i read the others answers mine turned into a 1990 MTV music video where objects are immutable but displayed in lots of different ways, colors, textures, ... I also exploded it when the pwrson touched the ball for fun.

I have worked a lot in video games and scientific visualisation, so the test looks like something I'd make in a 3D engine I guess, least information possible to show the important things, the ball etc.

I can imagine and see about anything, colour, texture, forms, people, movements, but the more details the more zoomed in it gets. I can imagine you as lofi-girl looking at your phone, but expeession like "what the crap did I just read" imagining you reading this for example.

HTH

[–] BilboBargains@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

The ball was black, made from rubber, tennis ball size. Only a hand was imagined. No particular colour or gender. The table was made from Elm.

[–] vpklotar@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago
  • What color was the ball? Grey.
  • What gender was the person that pushed the ball? No idea, was there even a person? Couldn't really get it to move more than just rolling along.
  • What did they look like? Se above, I've no idea as I couldn't really image a person.
  • What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else? Like a palintar in lord of the rings (commonly known as a "seeing stone" I believe?).
  • What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of? Couldn't image a table, it just kinda layed in the emptyness.

TDLR, can't really image stuff and really can't image people, who especially not faces.

[–] match@pawb.social 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

i could answer all these questions except the gender, what does that count for

(it was a white reflective crystal ball being pushed off a half-cloth-covered wooden table by a wizard with a tall hood, beard, and tits)

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

At my desk eating. So the table was my desk and I imagined a white ball that suddenly moved and fell down to the floor. I didn't imagine a person pushing it because that wasn't part of the deal. However when you asked the other stuff then yeah I could imagine up anything else in the same scene.

[–] owsei@programming.dev 1 points 9 months ago

I imagined a red dodgeball on a small brown table. The person was just a thick stick figure and when the ball fell it bounced.

The color and shape I didn't actively choose, they cam be different, but I guess my brain has defaults.

The ball falling and bouncing, however, I had to actively think about, the same way I have to think about texture. I don't have to think about where the ball would stop, or how much it would bounce tho.

[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago
  • gray ball, about the size of a typical dodge-ball.

  • Featureless, sexless "humanoid"; like a "suggestion of a person" or a "fuzzy shadow".

  • Round table. Nondescript. Most similar to one of those tall, small round tables you find in pubs. But again, featureless.

  • Nothing happens when the human pushes it. The human can't push it because the human has no physical form.

[–] HollowNaught@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Grey, female, cartoonish with that weird bob round kind of look that comes with bushy brown hair that's slightly longer than shoulder length, slightly larger than a ping pong ball, wooden square/rectangle, no.

[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 0 points 9 months ago

Visualise (picture, imagine, whatever you want to call it)

I ignored this portion of the instruction because it was unnecessary to answer the question of what might happen to the ball if it were pushed by someone. I didn't visualize anything until moving on to the spoiler questions. Even then, my brain mostly went "nah, we'd just be making up something to fill in details irrelevant to the question, don't waste the energy".

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›