19.075 visual imagination and memory

                Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 75.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 10:17:36 +0100
         From: "Stephen Woodruff" <s.woodruff_at_arts.gla.ac.uk>
         Subject: visual imagination/memory

In a report yesterday Willard McCarty said
> and those without visual imaginations (like me) ...
and I stopped reading.
I too have no visual imagination. I thought I was alone; perhaps I am in
the extreme of it (I have a very poor visual memory too) but it made me
wonder how many people have the same...affliction?...disability?
I was 9 years old when I went home to tell my parents that when the
teacher said "imagine you are in a room full of giant chairs" some of
the other kids claimed they could really see the furniture. When I lose
my partner in a crowd I make a conscious effort to remember what she was
wearing, or at least what colour, so I can look for her through the
people. I almost never do remember.
Is there anyone else out there whose vision is normal but whose internal
vision is not? Or what is normal? Should I be embarrassed to admit this?
Does/should ones abilities in this affect choice of career?

Stephen Woodruff,
HATII
George Service House, University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ Scotland / UK
phone +44 141 330-4508 fax +44 141 339-1119
Received on Sun Jun 05 2005 - 05:46:56 EDT