Think of a cat. Now picture a cat.

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Even though I have three cats, when I read the OP I saw in my mind a cat which doesn't look anything like any of my cats. I'm a visual thinker, but why the unfamiliar image?

Cat-agory topic

I can picture different sorts of cats, all animated, meowing, different colours.

Because of my pictorial thinking, I must think in pictures and then translate into words. the extra step slows my thinking to a snail's pace (I can picture the snail and its slimy trail. )

This is true for me, unless I type or talk at the same time... Then I can speed up the process considerably. Thinking in words is so slow, and I can't really manage for very long without using something to assist the process.

Either for me will illicit the memory (image and associations) of one of the cats from my childhood.

If I were to think of a cat ..I would unconsciously think in a spider diagram way...so info. is all linked, but Im not consciously thinking of the spider diagram I'm thinking of the 'cat'. also I think in flashes of words.
As im a right brain learner I find it more easy to think in images than those who learn with their left brain.(which makes little to no sense as when I took many online personality tests They all said I way INTJ which is more scientific...(?) Also I'm an artist so...my brain is kinda trained to think in images.

Interesting topic by the way.I love studing how people think. Even if its all just abstract ,conceptual mumbojumbo most of the time

When I'm told to think of a cat, I see a movie (for lack of a better term) of a cat, doing typical cat behavior. When told to picture a cat, I get a still picture in my mind.

When I "think of a cat" I feel a face brush my cheek. When I "picture a cat" my mind tries to call up images but it doesn't work too well. Pieces like you said. I'm a sensory thinker not a picture thinker.

Yes, there is no difference between the two for me. If someone says think of a cat, I see a cat in my mind. Usually one of my cats, to be specific. I can also match colors from memory, an ability that my mother thinks is uncanny, and picture how some novel object will look in a particular spot, so I'm really useful for decorating a house. Visual thinking allows me to see how things fit together and work. It isn't just physical things either. I'm very good with things that can be represented by graphs, and consequently very good at making graphs myself. I always found it great that abstract things like economics, business, and statistics could be represented by graphs. When I do these subjects, I see the pictures first and that allows me to work through the rest of it.

When I was younger, my visual memory was so accurate, when I would take a test, I'd remember what page the answer was on by remembering the pictures and captions around it. As I got older, I started making my own pictures to remember things when there were no actual pictures. I never thought anything about it until I was much older. I just thought everyone remembered things like that and I was just 'better' at it. I wasn't so good at pure math until I got old enough where they taught number theory and explained things with Cartesian coordinates and graphically I found it easy to understand. I was a horrible writer, and still can't really do creative writing. Persuasive and essay writing came much slower to me, as did English/grammar, and I'd say my progress was pretty normal there where I was advanced in science and history. I got good at it eventually, but it took a lot more time, practice, and exposure to good examples and teachers before I picked it up. Still can't do creative writing really. I can imagine things, but I can't really structure it into words in any meaningful way.

Last edited by Zur-Darkstar on 11 Jan 2011, 1:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks, your style of thinking in this regard seems to match me and I'm a bit surprised by that because I'm such a logical word-loving aspie and my impression of you was different. We all relate in more ways than we don't.

I think I understand thinking in pictures or visually better now.


This strikes me as very funny.


I think it's normal to have stock images in your head, actually.


Most aspies get INTJ/INTP.

It's the same for me, except the cats coat changes from tabby to black and white.
Yeah, I think in in pictures. Would be bored half the time if I didn't.

I'm not predominately right brained. I'm both right and left. I'm artistic but logical. Some people have more extremes on one side or the other.

I'm not sure if you can learn to be a picture thinker. You can try to spend some time drawing, painting or taking photos.
I was taking photos of my electronic flight TARDIS and every time I saw a door I could see the door of the TARDIS. Images just stay in my mind.

when you say picture a cat, I pictured a black cat with green eyes wagging his tail.

when you say think in pictures I think a bunch of random pictures flashing through my head

kind of like the intro to trailer park boys

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/comedy/watch/v19078157mJxRgkJs

except instead of really short videos it's pictures

This is what i don't understand about non-visual thinkers...you say that when you are told to think of a cat, you repeat the word cat in your head..but you arenot doing what you were told to do then , i tend to instinctively try to do as i'm told ( even though i'm fighting it as i grow older). When you think of the word cat, you are not thinking of a cat. The only way the word cat would appear in my mind (in writing though) would be if someone told me to think of "the word cat", it is different from the concept of cat, 2 very different objects in my mind. A cat is a fluffy creature with eyes and ears etc, not the letters c-a-t...
It's interresting but i can't grasp how someone would mix up the two things to the point they become one thing to them..

 I think it's because we are both not very visual-specific. Non-visual brains probably balk at images in similar ways even if they're quite different in other ways. 

My vision is itself quite fragmented in some ways compared to things like touch, kinesthetics, or smell. So often my attempts at visual thought are that way as well. 

Someone else in the thread mentioned that as a painter they were good at visual thought.  I'm also a painter but I think my paintings reflect my lack of visual thought in some ways. I paint cats all the time, but I paint their movement more than I paint their visual appearance. I do it largely by feel and use vision only as a secondary sense. The backgrounds of the paintings tend to reflect my sort of complex multilayered sensory experiences. (That doesn't always show up in photos of them.)







The third one is the only painting I've ever done from a photo, and while that means it's the only one where I did much regarding fur color, it's still more about movement than visual accuracy. (The photo was of a Japanese temple cat stretching after a nap.) Normally I don't even plan what I'll paint or whether it will be a cat so whatever happens is more surprising to me than anyone. 

I'm not able to think in images. It's hard for me to see images of things I know well. I can think of the concept "cat" as a generic abstraction (or perhaps the "form" of cat similar to the Platonic sense of the word).

My understanding of Temple Grandin's writing is that not all autistics have that visual thinking trait, but rather it's more common with autistics. I suspect that it's not possible to really know what that's like without having that sort of brain, just as it's probably impossible for Ms. Grandin to know what it's like to think in abstract patterns without visuals.

Her writing used to say all autistics are visual thinkers. Then later she was told it wasn't true so she came up with two and only two other types of autistic thinking and it's not clear how she came up with them or how accurate they are. (Especially hard to tell because some autistic people read them, take it literally that there are only three kinds of autistic thinking, and attempt to force fit themselves into a category.) Not sure if she ever got beyond that or realized that most people are visual thinkers or exactly how diverse autistic thinking is. I'm not sure she ever will given that talking to hundreds of autistic people and families yielded only three kinds of thinking. (Visual, verbal/logic, music/math/memory. I am none of these.)

Both times I just pictured my cat.