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From: john larkin <jlarkin_highland_tech>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Visualizing
Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2024 08:59:06 -0700
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On Fri, 06 Sep 2024 11:27:38 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

>On Fri, 06 Sep 2024 07:53:46 -0700, john larkin
><jlarkin_highland_tech> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>I was driving and listening to the local mostly-annoying NPR radio
>>station, but they had an interesting interview with a book author. It
>>was about his novel or some poetry or something.
>>
>>What was interesting was his recalling a conversation that he'd had
>>with his wife. She was takling about a plant or something and asked
>>him to visualize it. He was astounded that she, or anyone, could close
>>their eyes and *see* something they were thinking about. 
>>
>>I was shocked to learn that there are people who can't form a mental
>>visual image.
>>
>>Close your eyes and consider a nice white ceramic dinner plate with a
>>beautiful deep red apple sitting in the center. Can you see it? From
>>the side and from the top? Do you see the stem? The colors? Imagine it
>>slowly rotating? See the fruit fly?
>>
>>If the world is divided between people who can visualise and people
>>who can't, that could explain a great deal.
>
>There are definitely such people, and I've met them.  The example that
>springs to mind was a History Teaching Assistant I met in college in
>the 1960s.  It turned out that he had been an EE Undergrad, and
>discovered that he could not visualize the electrons in motion, unlike
>his colleagues.  This TA was wise enough to know that this was
>crippling - he would never be able to compete with those who could
>visualize electrons.  So he switched to History.
>
>Joe Gwinn

The statistics would be interesting, whether the non-visualization
thing is common or maybe very rare. I'll have to google that some
time.

There is a small fraction of the population that don't like music, for
example. That includes me. Some people absolutely can't remember
faces. I know a guy who can only recognize people by their hair.

I'd expect that among CE/EE graduates, good visualizers would tend to
be more EE and less visualizers more CE. Things vs words.

That would suggest a good interview question.

I was drafted once (never served) and took a test to join the Marine
Corps. One part involved looking at a flat thing with various squares
painted with patterns, and then imagining a box that was folded up
from the flat thing. I guess that visualizing things would be useful
to a Marine.

I think the original IQ test was for the military.