Aphantasia ???? never knew I had it

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Discussing this with Mrs P who can visualise, I find it weird that she can see things clearly in her mind whilst I see nothing. Surely seeing things that aren't really there is more disturbing than not seeing them ?

MiniMouse - I can hear and recognise voices much better than I can see faces. I frequently recognise the voice of someone who has only phoned me once before, yet would be unlikely to recognise a face until I have met someone many times, and even then it's in the lap of the gods
As for all the other sounds you mention, yes I can hear them, though I can 'see' an image too, as they aren't faces!

For the record, my score was 8 (apparently your score at least 1 in each test.)

Horrible test to take! It reminded me of the optician when he or she asks is it better with this lens or that. I can never decide.

I think I am a bit like Tegan's artist friend, face blind. It is such a drawback. in the test I did much better on the sun section.

I am better at recognising voices but it is a great sadness to me that I cannot remember my mother's voice.

36, but like you, Nandalot, I did better on the natural wonders section!

I too struggle with the eye test bit "better with or without" end up all confudled!

With regard to recognising faces, I do have a bit of a problem when people are wearing sun glasses.

Slightly off topic I know but I can 'hear' peoples voices that I have spoken to a lot on the phone; doesn't work with people that I 'see' to speak to. I know this sounds bonkers but there was one friend that I spoke to a lot on the phone but only saw once or twice a year [we used to go racing together]. He sadly died many years ago but I sometimes feel as if the phone might ring and I'll hear his voice on the other end.

34. However, I found it difficult to visualise with my eyes shut, better to gaze 'blankly' and visualise rather than seeing what is in front of me.

I always had a tendency to daydream when I was a child - is that connected?

Quote from a programme about graffiti that I watched the other night 'Sometimes we have to use our eyes in order to hear what people are trying to say'; I rather liked that#notsurewhatitmeansthoughbutitsoundsgood

I have moderate face blindness. (got emailed by some testers after taking one of those online tests) the nature stuff was a lot easier.

38 for me. Faces aren't quite so clear. Interestingly, I like to dabble in watercolours, and can't paint faces for toffee.

Voices and sounds too. When I think of my friend who died over 40 years ago I can still 'visualise' her voice as well if not better than her face.

It's interesting about dreams too. Mine are vivid adventures, most of them enjoyable and in them I can hear perfectly - no tinnitus!

So why is it more difficult for some of us to visualize faces? I am hopeless at recognising people. When we had a school reunion I was so embarrassed as people were coming up to me and warmly greeting me with my name, and I didnt even ever remember seeing them before let alone their name!

40! But actually that didn't surprise me as I've always been aware of this ability to visualise things, people etc. My sister and I used to share a bedroom and would lie in bed at night describing to each other the vivid scenes that randomly unfolded in our heads. There would be people involved in various activities and I would be able to see their faces as clearly as if they were in the room with me, people who, to my knowledge, I'd never met (though of course they may have been in my subconscious from having seen them in the street or on TV etc.). I could describe the surrounding countryside down to the buttercups growing in the fields. My brother never really got this and always maintained it was imagination. It wasn't, because these were scenes I could see, like a film running through my head. I didn't know what was coming next, I wasn't consciously 'making it up'.
Sometimes we would suggest a scene to each other, and it would appear in my mind's eye, just like that. It might be an urban landscape, for example, and I would be able to describe in detail all the shops I was walking past, the colours of the doors, etc. etc.

Are you good at art Indinana?
I am not. I cant visualise it so I cant draw it.

Though thinking about it, even if I see it, I cant draw it!

I wish I was soon. I can draw people - well, I don't know about these days, but I used to do a lot of drawing when I was younger, and it was always people I wanted to draw.
I'm quite creative in other ways, craftwork and so on, and enjoy photography - and particularly love creatively editing photography in Photoshop.

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When the DDs were small, one had trouble getting to sleep around the age of 7 or so and I can remember telling her to visualise a big picture and make up a story to herself about all the people or animals or things in her picture.
It always worked and that early visual imagination might have given me a hint of her future talents. She is now a successful theatre designer who has designed plays, musicals and operas, including work at the NT and the RSC at Stratford.

I can visualise but what's in my mind's eye doesn't transfer to my hands if I try to draw it.

39 - how many will take the exeter uni challenge? I will if you will...

Can remember many things from early childhood. Can't draw to save my life.

Smells are very evocative for me, and bring back situations/memories, therefore pictures. No-one has mentioned those, or is it to do with memory rather than visualisation?

I think I score 40 as well, but I'm confused about differentiating between memory and visualisation. Surely you have to have seen the component parts of something to be able to visualise it? And then it is in your memory, isn't it? You can then put items together to make an image, such as phoenix and her frog/stone/dripping water. (p.s. mine is a little green tree frog btw)

Icyalittle, no, I can remember things, like the layout of the house I lived in as a child, but I cannot bring any visual image into my mind. This must seem very odd to anyone that can visualise things, but to me it is normal.

Memory is totally different, for instance you can remember being in pain, but you can't visualise pain. You may be able to visualise the circumstances that caused the pain, but pain itself can not be visualised.

Re Exeter Uni, I have put myself forward for study.

I scored 31, I have no problem visualising scenes, indeed one way of getting to sleep is to imagine lying in all the different bedrooms on our trip round the world in 2012. (Hope that doesn't sound smug, not meant to)

But I have a real blindness for faces and people. If asked to even describe my husband's face, I would really struggle! I cannot remember my parents faces or voices, which is sad. I have better luck remembering photos of faces, but actual people, not a hope!

well, I have moderate face blindness and failed the visual memory test I was testing five year olds with. I seem to manage ok with landscapes.

How exactly do you "see" the house when you remembering the layout?

Doesn't make sense.