- 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.
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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I have hyperphantasia according to these kinds of tests (although I am not sure how accurate they are). In any case, the ball was white with a green glow it was smooth and looked like plastic but no seams where the halves were joined, male, like a large blue bird I saw in a cartoon, a bit larger than a baseball, the table was a very long rectangle shape. It was also white. The ball was pushed very hard from one end of the table to the other and then it bounced on the wall, the floor and the ceiling. The room was a bit small, with only a very small window rectangular window. It was black behind the window. The room was also rectangle shaped, with concrete grey walls. It was a bit dark, but there was some artificial light from a lamp. The bird acted very cartoonish when pushing the ball. I think that is all.
Maybe I am broken by all the physics thought experiments, but my image was very bare-bones
spoiler
I imagined a small ball (roughly of size of my fist) but only an outline, no features, I did not imagine practically anything about person - just a force (imagined impulse was parallel to table plane) - I did imagine ball rolling (considered forward rolling, as opposed to impulse on center of mass (which in a frictionless situation would make it just linearly translate, or backspin) and falling from the table after a few seconds
Sure, OK.
Welcome to my brain
- Red
- Don't know, the "camera" wasn't panned up that high
- All I really "saw" was jeans
- Looked like one of those rubber balls that people like to bounce against walls, like in handball or squash. About as big across as the palm of your hand. Hollow, you could squish it without much effort.
- one of those simple black square tables from Ikea
That's kind of what just popped into my head before I knew there were questions.
- Ball rolls about two feet and stops just before it rolls off the table.
- White ball, polished surface, shiny
- Male
- Tall person, slender build, light brown hair, clean shaven, white button-up collared shirt, blue jeans.
- Ball was a bit bigger than a billiard ball, but smaller than a baseball. Smooth, and heavy. Like a white cricket ball but with no seams.
- It was one of those large common fold-up trestle tables but with a white table cloth on it.
- I knew all those without having to think about it, or choose afterwards.
To me the imagery seemed like a cheesy "how to push a ball" educational video with a paid actor to demonstrate how to push the ball in the correct manner.
I find it very interesting that the vast majority of people saw a red ball. I did too.
::: spoiler
- red
- Indeterminate, mostly just an arm
- shoulder-length brown hair, androgenous body, hidden face
- Like a rubber bouncy ball you'd get in a party bag
- wooden, square
Mostly I already knew, but it felt like things were "filling in" as I tried to "remember" the image to answer the questions, especially around the person.
:::
I imagine it's because it's the simplest, most common type of ball that you commonly see described as such. Like, baseballs and basketballs and soccer balls and beach balls exist, but out of context they're typically called that rather than just "a ball". So, a simple round ball. Giving it a pattern requires some extra thought, and of the solid colors red seems like the most common (think dodgeballs).
Same
- The ball was red.
- I have no idea.
- I have no idea.
- Like, maybe softball sized? A little bigger? I'm not sure.
- Square. It was made of brown.
Oh my! I didn't know what to expect, and I have to say... I was quite surprised by some of your answers. Also confirmed to me that I am definitely not normal
Not many replies that are indicative of Aphantasia so... here goes nothing. I tried really hard at this okay
spoiler
I don't "see" see anything when I close my eyes. I can create a very vague concept of a ball, a table, and... kind of a person in my head, but I don't actually see the scene, I used to think when people say imagining things they were just making a metaphor. Things get really funk from here... But the overall schema feels more like one of those badly drawn scenes from the hit visual novel Slay the Princess. And yes I imagined it in 2D for some reason
- Color: the ball doesn't have a color
- Gender: it wasn't even a real person; it seems like a silhouette of the hand and back of a person
- Looks: As I said, the person isn't even facing me
- Size: No idea; in retrospect it's fairly large compared to the table (diameter probably 1/2-1/3 of table?), but the table is also an abstract concept so...
- Table: no clue, it is a square table but that's it. If anything it looks like the things served on Pizza Hut pizzas
- Well I spoiled the question for myself so... but I didn't have to choose, heck I couldn't choose even if I know what the questions are
Just as an exploration with you on this. Use your same instructions for the placing and actions with one difference.
The room is pitch black, and you can't see a thing.
What do you hear?
Click for review questions:
- what did the steps of the person sound like? Can you tell what kind of shoes they have with "heal/toe" impact sounds? single thumps indicating flat footfalls? nothing?
- how long were they walking before they got to the table?
- Did the ball make any sound as it rolled on the table? What kind of sounds? What kind of table would make that sound?
- When the ball hit the floor did it bounce or fall flat? Was there an echo? Did the sound of the fall indicate you're in a tiny room or a giant room?
- How close was the person to your point of observation?
- Could you hear the person breathing?
- What else did you hear that I didn't include here?
- The person didn't walk, that wasn't the focus of what I was imagining
- The ball didn't make a sound when it rolled, but I was imagining a soft futsal ball that would make almost no noise rolling on a table. If I'd been imagining a marble or something that would have been different
- The ball bounced once a bit, then fell flat, it's how a futsal ball bounces, it's a kind of "splat" sound with no echoes. I didn't imagine walls, so the room is effectively infinite sized
- The person wasn't really part of what I was imagining. They were there to give the ball a push, but otherwise were irrelevant, so I didn't focus on them in any way
If I'd let my fantasy get "polluted" by the other questions and stories, I'd have answered differently. With all the questions about the person, I'd have invented a person and effectively "panned out" so that the person was part of what I was thinking about. Instead I went with my original visualization which just involved an effectively disembodied hand giving a ball a push. If this were a TV show or something, the only part of the person that I ever saw was the hand that gave the ball a push, everything else was "out of frame". But, I wasn't imagining a "frame", just whatever my mind's eye was focused on, which was almost entirely the ball, and not anything else.
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You imagined a lot more details than I did. For me it was just the concept of a ball. And then the idea of it moving. The person and the table were left our as irrelevant.
The thought experiment I use when explaining to people about aphantasia is a much simplified version of yours: "imagine a circle", "ok", "what color is it?"
That's it. People give an answer, sometimes including more details, like texture. Then I tell them that for me the question doesn't make sense, I just imagined the idea of a circle and didn't actually "see" anything, so there's no additional detail to it.
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- The ball was orange
- I don't remember
- I don't remember
- As big as an orange
- The ball was on a white surface
Honestly, it's patchy.
'ball on a table' is very generic, so my brain keeps suggesting different versions. A beach ball on my grandparents' living room table when I was a child. A fairly featureless basketball-sized sphere on a beech-like table in some kind of gallery-like environment. A tennis ball, but on little more than the concept of a table. The person, not being specified... could be anyone. In some versions it's my own arm, POV, in others it's like something seen out of the corner of your eye. Yeah someone came in and did a thing, I wasn't really looking.
The motion is more like a series of vignettes, unless I concentrate more - in which case the surrounding detail gets more abstract.
Now, if you give me details, that's another story.
A fuzzy yellow tennis ball on that cheap folding card table from my childhood with the padding cut off, leaving the textured fibreboard surface. My older sister strides up and shoves the ball across the table, making the flimsy legs wobble as she does so.
Do that, I can see the texture of the carpet and the bare walls from our shitty childhood apartment, I can downright smell the table and have the heft of the thing kinaesthetically along with the shape and visual textures. I can see the skitter and wobble of the ball across the table; my sister more an abstract bundle of mannerisms and gait, and the actual path of the ball is still more implied than observed, though.
For the most part, my visualisation is handwave, like looking through your blind spot or your peripheral vision: the part your brain makes up to fill in the missing details. When I read a book, it's like half-remembered cover-illustrations of the general scene: more vibe (sometimes richly textured, vivid vibe) than a literal image.
In my head, a red rubber ball the size of a baseball rolls off a square wooden table and falls on the floor. A guy pushed it.
Edit: I knew ahead of time. I added more detail once I saw the quiz but I can imagine pretty vivid images.
That is interesting. I imagined it more like an abstract physics problem than an actual scene. My ball was about 6 inches diameter, made of a nonspecific hard but not very dense material similar to, but not necessarily solid plastic, of no specific color. It was in the center of a table roughly 3 x 6 feet in surface at normal sitting table height, and was also of no specific color or material. The person was just the vague notion of a person applying a push slightly off from across the short axis of the table. The ball bounced slightly on the generic idea of a floor as it rolled away. My mind quickly supplied the additional details when requested, but not until then. (Yellow ball, wood table, etc). If I'd been asked in a way that didn't feel like a physics problem, but instead asked me to imagine a scene, I would already have had many of those details in my mental view.
Neat!
spoiler
- Red. It was rubber.
- Male.
- Tall, thin. I don't remember a face, but he was wearing an old-fashioned formal shirt and sport jacket. The cuff of the shirt was unbuttoned and folded back. He also wore a wide-brimmed black hat. (I'm currently watching an episode of Hell on Wheels which probably influenced that.)
- Large for an apple, small for a canteloupe.
- Square, dinner-table-hieight. Dark-stained wood. I'm no woodworker, so I wouldn't know what kind of wood it was, but I've got a couple of bookcases of the same wood and staining.
Aside from that, I can say it took place in an old cabin and in the background, I saw an open doorway to a... foyer? The door to the outside was open. It was very sunny. And I saw green grass outside.
And, I knew all those things before I got to the questions. I just had to consult/replay the scene in my head to get all the answers.
Seems fair to say I don't have aphantasia.
Very interesting!
My results
The ball was about the size of a baseball, and the table was square, but I couldn't answer any of the other questions without just making something up when they were asked.
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I’ve never head of this test before now. Spoiler tags to help others avoid the answers before they take the test.
Tap for spoiler
The ball was somehow chrome but not reflective, and bigger than a large marble. The table was a flat plane with no features. The person pushing the table had no features. There were no other features within this thought space
- White/colourless ball. And honestly, more of a circle viewed from a perfect side on angle.
- I didn't visualise a person only the effect of their push on the ball. And like another poster corrected the slide to a roll.
- See above.
- Ball was of uncertain size. It was viewed side on, and no other objects to give a sense of scale. Maybe tennis ball sized, but I think that's retroactive.
- Table was rectangular and wooden. But no legs. Unsure of the thickness.
Included the timely-ness of the details in my answers above.
It was a billiards/pool ball, but no idea which one as I just associate balls on tables with playing pool.
No idea on gender, formless concept.
No idea on looks, just a concept.
Whatever size a pool ball is, 2-3 inches? Just a concept though.
It is a pool table with green felt and a raised edge and six pockets because that is what a pool table is. Can't really see it. Just aware of it's general properties and how the felt and wood feels.
Eveey detail is based ona pool tabke and ball because my first thought about balls on tables is playing pool. Without the table detail I wouldn't have anything at all to work with.
My answers:
- What color was the ball? Metallic silver
- What gender was the person that pushed the ball? A woman
- What did they look like? Short straight black hair, pale skin tone, fit build, black blouse, plaid skirt, black leggings, wearing black pumps
- What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else? Slightly larger than a baseball, slightly smaller than a softball
- What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of? Wood, square, about 1 meter/yard square, thick square legs one at each corner.
Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/gender/size, etc. after being asked these questions? All of this was a picture before seeing the questions. Other things about the image that weren't asked were also there like:
- the room was lit from a single light bulb above the table with a wide shade. Light was cast straight down on the table/ball and extended slightly beyond the table, but I couldn't see how big the room was...until the ball rolled off the table and hit the floor. I could tell the floor was smooth wood and the walls in the room must also be of a hard material because the sound of the solid ball hitting the floor reverberated. The light showed one wall was red brick. It was indoors.
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OK today I learned I may have aphantasia.
It suffices to say, the follow up questions were bizarre to me.
The scene was like an example reel from a video game, greenscale-ish translucent humanoid mannequin standing in a pseudo void, with a nondescript rectangular table of a similar greenscale-ish semi translucent material, and only the ball is "finished" as it is the camera focus. It is approximately between baseball and softball size, smooth, but I did not pay attention to the color. There is an "interaction/activation" sound effect as the mannequin kinda leans over and lightly pushed the ball to cause it to roll. It rolls to a stop on the table top, and this action loops.
The center of focus pulled back as I read the questions, more becoming aware of them than choosing them, and the scene changed with a camera pull out as part of the "ball is pushed" tutorial clip.
I have realized how much growing up as a gamer as influenced my perspective.
- The ball was a futsal ball, so white with green markings
- I didn't see the person who pushed the ball, just their hand, I was concentrating on the ball
- The table was at about the height of a typical dining room table, it was plain wood about 1cm thick with a dark top and had fairly thin black metal legs
I already knew the answers, for the most part. The questions didn't cause me to add more detail, but they did cause me to reflect on the details I had chosen. So, for example, I never looked at the person who pushed the ball. Because of that, I couldn't fill in any details about their looks or gender. But I did clearly see the hand giving the ball a push, and I think the hand belonged to someone white. Having said that, I did have to stop and think about the answer for the table. The table was part of what I imagined seeing, but it wasn't the focus of my attention. I realized I could think about what I had imagined and the details came to me. But, it's possible that I didn't actually dream them up until I was asked the question.
Also, nobody asked, but the ball fell down and hit a white surface (something like white tiles) and bounced the way a futsal ball bounces, which is to say mostly a soft "thud".
I fantasized all the details as they were asked in the prompt, but didn’t give an identity to the ball-pusher until the quiz asked for it.
Spoiler
Colorless.
Genderless.
The forbidden lovechild of Bongo Bongo and Turnip Head.
Ping Pong sized.
Rounded wooden table.
Visualizing takes work so generally only what's needed is there. But sometimes the darker thoughts escape out from the dungeon.