Do you frequently find yourself wanting to see non-visual media translated into visual media, and do you have aphantasia?

I don't have aphantasia, but I want to note that fantasy author Mark Lawrence has aphantasia. It seems impossible to write what he writes withoit being able to visualize it, but apparently he does.

I'm also at mostly a 5 (4 once in a blue moon) and I guess I would say...not really? Generally I find that audio media or novels or what have you are descriptive enough that even if I can't bring to mind the specific thing they're describing it's enough to conceptualize it generally and that's Good Enough for me if that makes sense.

Although I do appreciate official artwork and such for characters because I CAN kind of just affix that to mind and recall THAT. It's weird, brains are weird.

I find all the current hype over aphantasia to be fascinating. I am solidly in the “not” catagory. I have a very vivid minds eye and so I ALWAYS want things to be left up to my imagination. I used to look down on people who didn’t , but the talk about people who literally CANT imagine things makes me understand a whole lot more and see how it’s useful for other people.

For instance, I HATE voice acting in games. I can read at least 3x faster and the voices in my head are usually much better than the voices in the game. But if you can’t do that, I understand how the drama of the voiceovers could add something to a game.

I've never heard of aphantasia, so I have no I idea if I have it or not. I clicked on that apple test thing and either got a 5 or I just don't understand the concept at all. Either way, I've never had much problem with non-visual media. Though I don't really enjoy reading books, so maybe this plays into that somewhat? I consume plenty of audio content though, including table top RPGs, and don't have any issues there.

I'm a 1 or 2, I think. I've always considered myself to have an active imagination. I tend to listen to audiobooks, mostly because the act of reading will often put me to sleep. Whether I'm reading or listening, I can get pretty into it. I don't necessarily imagine faces of characters, but I wonder if this is because I'm not good at remembering names and faces IRL. There are plenty of books that I'd love to see translated to visual media.

Interesting, I came out as a 1 on an online test; I would have previously said that I am one of those people that is generally happy with the creator's chosen format of their work - so I guess that fits. It's rare for me to read a book and think, "I need to see that as a film." and I also like voice only productions (radio plays, Friends at the Table type thingys) without wishing for a full video, or visual accompaniment.

Strangely this ties into a problem I used to have when landlines were the thing, if I didn't know where the other person's phone was, or the layout of house the person was speaking from I'd find it harder to concentrate on what they were saying than if I knew they were speaking from a place I am familiar with. I can only describe it as being distracted by my brain constantly trying to create the place they were speaking from. Even now, with the lockdown meaning I've only spoken to my Mum over the phone these last 12 months+, I see her talking from the sofa in my minds eye as clearly as if you asked me to recall a video chat.

I do tend to lean a little on the "hmmmm, is this a thing?" side of the fence when it comes to statements of how people think - especially if there are limited numbers of studies on it. 'How do you think' is an incredibly challenging thing to study especially as the researchers are relying on the 'truth' of the person being tested when interpretation of thoughts can be so subjective. It seems like this is still a relatively understudied area so it would be interesting to see more studies into this.

Interesting discussion. Based on the "apple test" in the twitter thread I would have said I was a 1, i.e., I can imagine an apple fairly vividly if I concentrate including filling in its precise shape and color and details like how it's dimpled or bruised. However based on the "ball on a table" test that they link to, I would be closer to the aphantasia side, because I certainly didn't fill in any of those details (and it's kind of amazing to me that anyone would.) Instead I just imagined the motion of the ball: the way it slowly rolled its way off the table and bounced a few times on the floor.

So while I *can* conjure a vivid visual imagination, it takes a bit of work for me, and I don't *usually*. Certainly when I'm reading a book, I never pay attention to a lot of the smaller visual details like what characters look like or what they are wearing. Take any character in a book, even one I am raptly interested in, and I could not tell you what their hair color is (unless it's an important story point of course.) In particular I always find it strange and a bit boring when authors describe in detail the shape of someone's nose and things like that, because those descriptions are usually meaningless to me and I never remember them later. But I guess for a lot of people that is important.

The human mind is an interesting place.

The ball test loses me right away because there is no ball or table thus making the follow up questions a little tricky.

This is largely my experience as well, but I'd add that I don't generally like audio books, and I won't seek out any visual adaptations of books I'm interested in reading, because while I can confidently say I have pretty significant aphantasia, I am able to hear character voices in my head as I imagine them to sound as I am reading, and if my imagined voice doesn't match what an established character sounded like from a movie, tv show, or audio book, it can ruin my reading experience. I am currently awaiting publication of the final Expanse novel before watching any of the series, as an example.

@fluidk: Funny, I research a lot on how people critic media. And for the most part, people have some weird hive mind consensus on the show don't tell, cause they want to imagine pieces of art, and that's great cause it makes it more unique than you could ever think of yadda yadda. Overall, I hated the take that we should cater so much to crowds unwilling to let a movie adaptation of a book be made for example, cause it ruins the superior imaginative vision you had in your head and replaces it with the movie's official characters and settings. The reason I hated it, was for the OP's post. Never put my finger on it till this post thou. Like thriller fans constantly telling you how great jaws was before you could see the monster since your imagination played tricks and made it scarier, or how modern movies are ruined cause they show the creature, or how elrich abominations are scarier in books cause their described so sparsely, and include phrases like "It was so scary, like the worst nightmare you had blah blah blah." Just always felt it was unfair to those who don't as easily translate books to movies in their mind for example. Or those who just can't get into books, etc. Theres' a bunch of consensus and rules on how to handle media that creation that overlooks plenty of outliners, but that's another rant Ill save you from. That said, I'm a no on both fronts for OP question XD.

I am loving the fact that I am getting almost as many different answers to this as there are replies. It shows how complex our mind really is, while also making it impossible to pin down something like this.
I kind of do hope the "hype" of aphantasia turns into several studies down the line. It would be interesting to see if being able to visualize things with perfect clarity influences things like this for instance. It doesn't seem to be linked with artistic ability, as I know of several great visual artists who have it. It's all really fascinating.