Two questions:
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Do you picture anything in your mind while you're reading? Are you able to visualize, in your mind's eye, the setting the author describes? If you do not picture anything, how does that affect your reading, if at all?
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Are you able to read aloud and comprehend the sentences? Especially if you were handed a text you weren't very familiar with at all? Or do you struggle with reading aloud, but have no problem silently reading to yourself?
I ask these questions because I'm curious to see how many other readers out there are like me:
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I can't picture things in my head when I read. I can get almost vague shapes sometimes. But in general, I'm not "seeing" anything when I'm reading. This makes sci-fi and fantasy often challenging for me to read because I'm just not at all clear on what I should be picturing. Sci-fi films are much easier for me to follow.
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I can't read aloud and comprehend what I'm reading. It's as if all of my brain power is focused on saying the words and following the punctuation that I'm not able to also engage with the words and their meaning. If I want to read anything out loud, I almost have to memorize it beforehand.
I'm an avid and wide-ranging reader; it is my favorite activity of all, one that I've kept since childhood. So these two "can'ts" — picturing things and reading aloud — don't at all inhibit my love of reading. But I am wondering how many of me there are out there.
by Mike_Bevel
4 Comments
I have Aphantasia too – if i’m asked to picture a yellow van moving along a country lane it’s all just various blobs of grey. I can get the sense of the scene but I don’t see the colours and distinct shapes.
I’ve often wondered if that’s part of the reason why the fiction I prefer to read is largely character based rather than plot driven.
My experience seems to be the exact opposite of yours. I see picture the scenes, and can do it pretty fluidly even in a battle scene or far paced action scene, and I have never had an issue comprehending what I have read aloud.
I see full movies in my head while reading , scene by scene.
furthermore once I am done the movie is fixed forever. Even when I remember the book , or read it 10 years later, I will see the EXACT same scenes again.
Furthermore, if I get a scene wrong, for example I imaging the characters with a river to their right in a scene, and then further down the paragraph it turns out the river is to their left instead, well, tough luck, I will keep the initial wrong scene forever , with a mental note that it should be inverted.
I have different modes when I’m reading. Sometimes I like to hear the words in my head, like an audiobook. Images will definitely appear, abstract pictures. If I want to imagine a more vivid scene I’ll pause and think about it. If I’m really engrossed though it becomes its own trance state where it’s almost like my mind disappears.