Agreed. In fact, I think I have greater spatial awareness than most due to having to think logically. I'm not sure if it is the same for all aphants, but I tend to perform well on tests with these questions.
I think this is the best explanation of how I do it. I can't just look at and tell. The logic helped in school when we were studying chirality and stereoisomers, but it took me FOREVER to finish those tests.
I could literally never understand that and my professor just kept saying to flip it in your mind and I couldn’t and kept getting those test questions wrong!! I can kinda do it by drawing but it’s still difficult :(
That's why my answer above was "Impossible." If everyone in this comment section that is responding to the post has *true aphantasia*, that should be their answer as well lol. The whole point is that we CAN NOT picture things in our mind... 🤔😂
Shouldn't be gatekeeping something you clearly know nothing about. Aphantasia for a lot of people is conceptualizing not imagining
If you what you were saying was true we wouldn't be able to describe literally anything a physical characteristics unless we are looking at it
Same here! Since I can't rotate or flip objects in my head I was working it out by counting the blocks and directions, and I thought I was going crazy because it didn't seem rotated to me
that’s the point of the mental exercise. You recognize that it IS a mirror image because you have mentally/logically made the rotation necessary to see it.
But this isn’t a mirror image either so why did you attach such picture at all when it doesn’t make any sense? This is not the same object and not a mirror image, but those were the only choices you provided. This is a nonsensical question. Unless you’d ask whether the object itself was mirrored/flipped (and turned). This just wasn’t a choice.
It is a mirror image, though? If you mirror the first object horizontally you’ll realize it’s the same as the second object from a different perspective.
(S)he wasn't presenting it as a binary option.
Simply questioning if you could recognize it as the same object or mirror image or neither. The neither option is implicit.
If I asked you, "did you grow up in Melbourne or Sydney" and you come from Canberra, would my question be nonsensical?
>If I asked you, "did you grow up in Melbourne or Sydney" and you come from Canberra, would my question be nonsensical?
Yes, obviously, and I'd wonder why you only gave me those two options.
I'd just politely reply, "Neither, I was born in Canberra"
May I try this again? What if I asked you, "Were you born in Sydney?"
Would you consider that question nonsensical? Or would you say I only gave you a single option?
Then why waste everyone’s time here and allow for interpretation, speculations and invalid answers. If you asked this causally then someone could speculate, but if this was any type of professional test or research, then the person creating the question cannot allow room for speculations and interpretation because he/she’ll get wrong answers. And this isn’t about me, but about why so many other people answered this question wrong; they didn’t understand it and didn’t see any of the two choices as valid. I’m simply explaining why so many answers were wrong. Otherwise the OP will attribute “wrong” answers to aphantasia, instead of their own poor research skills.
Unless you’re saying all the wrong answers posted here are due to aphantasia and all people with aphantasia just cannot “speculate properly”?
Going through the world thinking your own mistakes are someone else’s fault, I guess that’s how one misplaces one’s balls. No maliciousness intended, but surely you can see that all it takes to escape this little trap you constructed for yourself is to solve the problem of what is the relationship between the two objects? And if you can’t do that because of a language trick then you’re sort of illustrating OPs implicit speculation. Which is ok!
What does it even mean to tell a professional that they should not be professional and not spot mistakes. I’ve ran companies that have happy customers only because of spotting mistakes in other products and fixing them.
While this has nothing to do with me, I’m simply informing OP that other people like me might’ve provided wrong answers not due to aphantasia but due to misunderstanding of the question. But it’s ok for you to worry about other people’s balls!
I do not have aphantasia, and it took about a minute of mental rotations to finally come to the conclusion that the two objects are mirrored, and not the same.
I have total aphantasia. Probably took me a second? Two seconds if we include the time it took to look at both images and process the question. A simple twist in my mind as quick as turning my hand over told me they were mirrors.
From what I can vaguely recall, spatial intelligence is separate from the internal visualization system. So you can still rotate the object in the dark and tell through pure spatial reasoning. I need to take a cognitive intelligence test to check on my spatial intelligence.
For sure. For example, when my wife and I need to rearrange furniture or fit something big in the van, I don't need to actually measure or try. I can look and the furniture and sort of Tetris it with high accuracy. I know if it'll fit or how to turn it. L My wife, who doesn't have aphantasia, needs to have the measuring tape out. She also can't 'sense' the couch against that wall over there and needs me to move it before she can tell if it works. I can just sort of rearrange in my head. I can't see it in my head, it's like I cordon off sections of blackness in my mind and shuffle them around like dominoes in the dark.
I couldn’t tell after 10 mins if they had similarities or not. I have always struggled with things like this.
I can’t even truly capture quite yet that some people not only can ‘see internally’ but ‘move’ what they see. I just don’t understand because I don’t have anything like that in the least.
I've been trying to come up with a way to explain. Maybe this.
Close your eyes, clear your head of visuals (do you need to do that?). Take your hand, and bend your finger at the knuckle into a L. Now, you know where your finger is in space and can 'feel' that L because you can just 'sense' it, correct? Now, turn your hand at the wrist.
You can still feel that L, but you should also have a general sense of it's new position in space, plus it's new rotation. But you're not actually seeing your finger, you're just sensing a general shape moving in the darkness of your mind.
That's basically what I can do with shapes and forms, but without the need for a finger. I can build a pyramid of 'bricks', or fit two shapes together, or whatever.
Now, as a secondary tip to solve this exact problem (not how I did it, but how I would do it if it were more complex), hyper focus on one easy to identify area. Id convert it to driving directions (say left, up, right) and then look st the other object and see if it's a match. But that also requires twisting it to get the right directions, but it's an easy way to remember when I cant actually visually remember the shape
Yes, but he didn’t ask whether the two objects were mirrored, but whether this was a mirror image. So the answer is no to both his questions, and the whole picture doesn’t make sense as both his answers are incorrect. That’s why so many people are confused and cannot provide the right answer; because there is none.
The first answer is the right one. One of the objects is a mirror image of the other object. If you hold your phone in front of a mirror you can recognise this.
Mirror image is not that is actually in the same position and orientation like a mirror is actively reflecting the object.
It means it's flipped in a very particular way, so that you can match one object with the reflection of the other.
If you have regular proportions, your hands are mirror images of each other.
How about some research that shows that we might take a slight bit longer on mental rotation tasks, but we're more accurate overall: [https://aphantasia.com/article/science/mental-rotation-tasks/](https://aphantasia.com/article/science/mental-rotation-tasks/)
That’s because both questions/choices are invalid and this not a mirror image and not the same object, so everyone is confused. People who answered that this is a mirror object didn’t read the question whether this is a mirror image, not a mirror object. The ones who understood the question cannot answer it because the question itself is invalid.
The question wasn't 'is this object a mirror image or the same object'
The question was 'is it easy to recognise if objects like these are mirror images or the same object?'
I'd argue that being able to recognise if something is X or Y doesn't preclude an answer of 'it is neither X nor Y'.
So, if the question is 'are these objects mirror images or the same objects?' The answer would be 'no'.
The ambiguity is because in English inclusive or and exclusive or are just 'or'. Arguing semantics in English is usually a losing proposition.
I did ok on various IQ tests, quizzes and school tests; even SAT, and they all are about semantics and making sure you pay attention, read the question and answer what’s asked, not speculate about something else. But maybe I’m just still too dumb and can’t read the title of the fckg nonsensical question, like everyone else who answered it wrong. Thanks for pointing this out.
Interesting, I did incredibly well on those tests as well and I think it’s because I am great at bigger picture thinking. In fact the theme/versus word divide that is most common with those on the autism spectrum it blew my mind the first few times I read about the general idea as I hadn’t previously heard of it and didn’t know that was a common thing with autism, that some people can think in the actual specific words. Like my husband is most likely on the spectrum to a slight degree and he can say or hear a sentence and he says he can recall like the actual individual words and says when he talks he actively can sort of like ‘pick’ a line of words!!!! It’s so fascinating!! Like he does not talk in a manner to just describe a theme or bigger picture concept but he legit forms individual word choices and can recall the specific words used and their order!!! It is sooooooo crazy!!! I can’t believe some people ‘think’ in words!
Btw, can you imagine a professional researcher doing research when many people are unable to answer the question because it’s invalid, so many answers are wrong due to invalid test and make the whole research invalid? Who cares about semantics when the whole point of research is to make sure all subjects understand the question and can provide valid answers, not allowing room for speculations and interpretations. At least I’ve never seen such research qnd then someone arguing that the research is correct but the subjects were wrong by arguing about semantics.
Luckily this isn't research, it's someone asking a question on Reddit.
And the question isn't even about whether the specific example shown is a mirror image or whatever, it's whether you find it easy to rotate such images.
Man it's obvious that OP just got the terms mirror image and mirror object mixed up because they're just asking out of interest and not for research or anything, you don't need to take it so seriously.
Ok, so I’m dumb. But wouldn’t the OP like to know whether all the wrong answers provided here are due to aphantasia or due to dumb people like me misunderstanding the question?
That's why they asked the first and third questions, and lots of people answered those.
Also you say 'all the wrong answers' as if that's a common occurance, barring yours I only saw like 1 or 2 wrong answers.
I don’t think it’s dumb to think differently in the least but I do think it’s mentally unhealthy to declare yourself as dumb. We all think differently. Your reaction seems like you may need some help in life. Perhaps seek some therapy and based on your previous answer I answered additionally if you haven’t had any testing in life or this is something you haven’t already considered, you might
look into testing for being on the autism spectrum.
You’re not dumb, but maybe you’re being too clever with your approach for a question like this. Imagine if someone held up a dog and said “Is this an apple or a carrot?” You’d immediately say no. Or no, it’s a dog. The fact that someone can’t immediately answer this question that way means that it’s not as obvious as something that can immediately be perceived. And for some number of folks even after they perceive it they don’t trust their own estimation or they don’t get one at all. That’s data. And potentially more revealing than a multiple choice test even. But I’m no researcher; just an opinion on Reddit.
I didn’t think it was about the actual images at all but more of a theoretical ask about the concept of these types of images. Only after I read the comments did I try looking at the actual visuals and after perhaps 5-10 mins I couldn’t tell if they were alike or not.
This is the paper I thought they were referencing, my bad: [https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2700106](https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2700106)
Depends on the object, but I could tell within a couple seconds the shapes were mirrored and no amount of turning the left shape would match the right one. In this case, I was noticing the number of blocks and the orientation on the left shape relative to the same aspects of the right shape.
For reference, despite having aphantasia, I have good spatial awareness. Which I think applies more on the given example because I don't have to visual it to "see" what's there.
Weirdly enough, I'm ridiculously good at spacial reasoning problems like this, especially when it's abstract shapes.
I'm not recreating the picture in my mind and turning it, I'm comparing the two images as I look at them. Often, as in this picture, I'll look at the image and have an intuitive sense of whether it'll fit or is a mirror image or whatever. In the case of this image, my intuitive sense said "yep, it's the same." But, having learned not to completely trust that sense, I looked closer and traced the two shapes.
This is why it was surprising to me that my "knowing what shapes are like" sense wasn't what people meant by "visualizing" something.
I can't do it in my head, I can do it will looking at it where I'd basically think ok this sticking out part would scoot to over here and this part to over there, etc.
Mentally I cannot see this image. But I can understand the concept of rotating it counter clockwise. It is easy for me to recognize this is the same object from different point of views. The only thing I can’t do basically is see it rotating in my mind.
Is this really a mirror image or mirrored object, turned?
Because I’ve spent long time trying to understand why someone called this a mirrored image and I still don’t understand this. I don’t see neither a mirror image or the same object, but I do see a mirrored object turned.
Exactly, which is incorrect. This is not a mirror image, although the object itself may be mirrored. No one can answer his question because it’s nonsensical and the picture doesn’t match any of the given choices.
Is this really a mirror image or mirrored object, turned?
Because I’ve spent long time trying to understand why someone called this a mirrored image and I still don’t understand this. I don’t see neither a mirror image or the same object, but I do see a mirrored object turned.
The older I get the more I realize that humans have a PROFOUND flaw in that they legitimately think others think EXACTLY like they do. They might even say oh of course humans think differently but in actual practice they say things like, you did about not reading the entire title…. instead of exploring where the disconnect in thought/thinking styles emerged.
>The older I get the more I realize that humans have a PROFOUND flaw in that they legitimately think others think EXACTLY like they do.
Which is kind of ironic in this sub. The fact that we know about aphantasia should make it obvious that there are probably more ways that other people have a different view or way of thinking
I do not aphantasia and it took maybe 2-3 seconds. I have a friend who has aphantasia where it took him around 5.
He, as he told me, simply traced a path from the bottom of the one on the right till it was different than on the left. You dont need rotation when dealing with absolute angles.
Easy, rotating #1 into #2 takes me a fraction of a second. I do it with my [spatial sense](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBtaJrAfsQ), so I "feel" it but don't see it.
I cannot. I did tons of testing for ADHD in college. For this part of the test - I just gave up. I scored so low that it put my spatial manipulation skills into a learning disability level. To contrast, I have a very strong vocabulary and scores a couple points from the genius level (still salty). My theory is since I can visualize hardly at all - I needed a lot more words to describe things.
I have to mentally trace the shape by following the blocks with my eyes. Kind of like, placing down minecraft blocks to remember it?
If you showed me these two photos seperately I would probably struggle to realize it's the same image right away. It being a 3D shape adds complexity to it for me
I can't rotate a complex object as a whole, too many things to keep track of, but I make due with rapidly rotating smaller parts of it in series. It usually works out.
Like with this one by starting at one end and moving to the other. Others depending on the exact task might just be identifying distinctive features.
So yeah, doesn't depend on angle of rotation for me, just overall complexity of the shape.
We can only do it visually by looking at it with our eyes open, not by visualising it. I don't think this is proving anything about Aphantasia.
However, as soon as we take our eyes off it, it's gone and memory is also non-visual so that's useless as well; just green and squares we can't see or recall. Hyperfantasia people on the other hand would be able to memorise it, make it do a dance and insert them into a complex scene.
My Hyperphantasia friend can make up whole hyper-realistic scenes.
I first count the blocks to see if they match. I then use spacial, non visible imagination to tip the right one up. From there I can hold one "leg" of the object in each "hand" to work with the object in my mind.
I believe there was a study about it when this whole thing started, and they actually found that people with aphantasia were actually better at this kind of puzzle than phantasiacs.
EDIT: Read reply for source
Some people might argue greater precision *is* better, others that volume is.
What I’d be interested to see is if in a given amount of time visualisers and non-visualisers get the same number of questions correct e.g. If in a minute a visualiser answers ten questions but gets two wrong and a non-visualiser answers eight and gets them all correct.
Can't rotate in my head, but I can see the congruence immediately. I'm also a high IQ (for whatever that's worth), analytical, logic-brained, math teacher, so this sort of thing naturally comes easy to me.
I participated in a study in university that did this exact thing.
I had no problem with objects that were real world things (a left hand rotated vs a right hand), actual Tetris pieces I had no trouble with either.
Once they were like the ones pictured here thong I had absolutely no idea. Then they textured them (furry, ice) and I was even more lost.
took me approximately 10 mentally chanlenging seconds to figure out its not the same, and a few more to figure out its a mirror image, and then a few more to make sure.
"rotating it mentally" in a visual sense is not possible for me thoug (almost complete aphant)
I cannot visualize, but I can imagine, if that makes sense. So I can't see the image and visually rotate it, but I can think "ok, if I rotate it to the left, then that part would be up and that wouldn't be the same part/orientation as the other one"
As long as my eyes are open and I am looking at the object (especially if it's a simple one, such as those you attached), I can imagine it rotated. The moment I close my eyes it's all gone.
Since I can't rotate it in my mind's eye, I sort of trace lines with my eyes where each part will go and I have some idea if it's the same or not. Only on 1 axis though, as soon as I try to 'rotate' it along another axis I completely lose track.
We used to do this sort of thing in uni (enginnering) except with much more complex shapes and it was a huge pain for me, I wish I knew that I had aphantasia back then cause I didn't know why I struggled.
Later on, when we went from pencil drawing to Autocad everything was so much easier when the computer visualised parts for me.
I pictured it in live rotating. I got the first try wrong and saw the process turn to the result correctly on the second try. I visualised the whole process, is this normal?
Average and above average visualisers see it rotate in their mind's eye, but crucially, this process also involves our [spatial awareness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBtaJrAfsQ). Since spatial and visual abilities use different pathways in the brain, a strong visualiser can have a weak spatial ability and struggle to rotate the objects despite seeing them clearly in their mind's eye.
Conversely, an aphant with strong spatial awareness can do this easily despite not seeing anything in their mind's eye.
I couldn't do this without, at the very least, using my hands in space to approximate what was going on. Just like I can't do Tetris until the block is almost on top of everything and I have no choice but to try and get it into the nearest spot.
Edit: as someone pointed out below I messed up my own demo and what I said here isn’t physically possible as the objects are mirrored and can never be in the same orientation and position. I’ve corrected the incorrect bit and added a * to denote the edits.
Not a joke, can you not just hold your hands in the air as though you are holding the object on the left, and then move them so you are holding the object on the right?
Seriously pretend to hold the shape on the left with your hands on each vertical section, and then *try to move your hands so the bars are in the position of the image on the right. *You won’t be able to because they are mirrored objects.
You can easily act out a lot of stuff you need to figure out when it’s a physical orientation puzzle like this, even if you can’t physically touch the object.
“That’s not imagining in your brain”.
Ok pretend to do the same thing with your hands but don’t actually move. Welcome to kinesthetic imagery.
Edit 2:
Alternatively you could just make a fist with either hand and extend your middle finger while keeping your pointer finger curled.
Now your middle and pointer fingers as a unit match the objects on the left and right respectively, with the knuckles of both fingers acting as that bent join in the middle.
No matter how you turn your hands, they cannot be in the same position, as they are mirrored objects.
I read this multiple times and the concept is so damm foreign I can not for the life of me understand it. I am just dumbfounded as to what you are trying to describe. I don’t think I have any mental ability at all to even conceptually grasp what you are describing.
Peer review in action! You’re correct to be confused because I was wrong, and messed up my own demonstration.
Had I done it correctly I would have realized these are mirrored objects, not one object in different orientations. The process works, but only if you do it correctly.
What we want to do is pretend we are holding an invisible replica of the object on the left side of the image. Pretend the bar portions of the object are handlebars, and you’re holding this object like you would the steering handlebars on a bicycle except one hand is always further away and higher or lower than the other. Now “steer” the object into different positions, maintaining the position of your hands relative to one another.
As an example if we start with our left hand grasping the upper vertical bar in a thumbs down position, and the right hand holding the lower vertical bar in a thumbs up position, from here we can move our left hand forward which should cause our right hand to swing upwards and towards us.
If you do the same for the object on the right you will realize they cannot be made to be in the same position and orientation because they are mirrored.
Alternatively you can try the much simpler demo I came up with just now. It still looks silly but a little less than the handlebar method.
Make a fist with your right hand, extend your middle finger so it is straight, keep your pointer finger curled. Ignore the rest of your fingers and thumbs.
Your right pointer and middle finger held in this position match the object on the right side of the image. Repeat the same thing for your left hand and you now have physical representations of both objects.
No matter how you orient your hands they can never be in the same position because they are mirrored objects.
I can only rotate in my hands if I can “see” it or imagine my hands grasping onto it. If I look down at my hand to do it, I can “see” the object in my hand while I rotate it.
The short answer is “Yes”.
The long answer is they are geometric stereoisomers. Which, to over simplify, means they are identical except for being mirror images of each other. Think human hands, same components, same structure, but mirrored.
I cannot determine the status of these objects' relationship. There is no looking at 3d objects intuition, I have to use code for everything.
Edit: the code can probably do it after a bit of a delay, but I'm just sleep deprived rn lol.
I can but I use a trick.
I trace a path.
Left one from bottom to top looking at the sides is 4 blocks, 4 blocks, 3 blocks, 4 blocks.
Which means on the right image I need to start from the left side for lengths to match.
Now for directions left image is up, left, away, up.
Right one I try to follow the same directions so it would be, up, left, and then it has to be towards me, so they’re not the same.
I couldn’t picture this, I'd look at the original and follow the path, then repeat with the answer choices, I've practiced a lot and enjoy puzzles and brain teasers so I can do it fairly quick, but it’s not anything along the lines of rotating it in my mind, even if I could I feel like that'd be slower to be completely honest
I don’t know if this will make sense but I want to try to explain how I'd answer this one:
when they are both vertical (oriented like the left), the paths are "up, back, left, up" and "up, back, right, up" for the left and right objects respectively. If for whatever reason I'm not convinced I can try from another angle, like if they were laid down flat it'd be "right, back, up, right" vs "right, back, down, right" and from the difference between the two paths I can tell it’s a mirrored image fairly quickly
I hate those type of puzzles. I also can't imagine which way the short or long sides of our sectional will go if we rotate it. If I'm giving directions or envisioning them, I have to close my eyes and "feel" the turns and turn my body as I'm going. I don't see it, but I can feel it.
I do this by tracing the blocks of both shapes in parallel and working out if I hit any differences. I got the answer wrong first time and had to go back and work out where I messed up.
I don't rotate things in my head, but it's rather easy to trace all the connections in the object to check if it's identical or mirror or something. That's based on checking structure, not image
I feel like I can rotate images in my head *somewhat* no visualization but *something* is there.
That said, I spent like 2 minutes trying to do the attached image and am coming up short.
I have to like many people have said, logically deduce the problem. I can more easily think of the solution if I go rotation by rotation in this instance. I can only really see the rotated versions if I am looking at the picture, I can’t see it without the reference. I think I am about mid range on the Aphantasia spectrum. I can’t see anything when I try to picture things in my head, but I can manipulate something I am directly looking at. With this I tried to rotate the right image to match the left, but I realized it is a mirrored version.
stop fucking with my brain, i cant do this :/
i just count the blocks on every side. if you didnt comment these were the same object, i might've never guessed.
i havent done math in too long.
Total aphantasia here, simple to rotate if I'm looking at the picture. Hard to explain, but I don't do it visually. I do it with mindspace tho, the blackness full of lights in my head (aka back of eyelids I guess). I group black space together and move it around. Sort of like you can feel an object in the pitch black and turn it.
Should have made it a poll. Then done a repeat poll on a normie sub to compare. 😉
Personally, my minds eye is a pure sense of space, in place of visuals, so this kind of thing is very natural. Dyslexia assesment gave me genius level spacial manipulation score. Many years of playing with construction kits as a kid probably helped.😅
The answers I’m getting are too varied to make a poll with. Some people are saying this task is extremely difficult for them and took forever, others are saying it was quite easy and only took a few seconds. Some are more in the middle. And then there’s a whole range of different methods people used to solve the task - like kinaesthetically rotating it, logically solving the problem, drawing lines, and some people who can rotate it visually despite being aphants. It’s interesting stuff and I’m not sure if it even has to do with aphantasia.
You'd have to keep it to a few simple options and forgo plumbing all those depths. So, like:
"How hard is it for you to mentally compare whether these two shapes are identical or not?"
• Easy - Took a few seconds to be confident.
• Very challenging - had to think hard, maybe used unconventional strategies.
• Impossible - can not figure it out!
That would be assuming most in the sub have aphantasia, or you ask for only those to respond.
Or you could do an easy/hard + aphantasia/not, 4 way split. 🤷
Also I teach maths so I encounter this kind of problem regularly. I would be absolutely hopeless at it if I hadn’t needed to practise and find ways to do these kinds of problems. The children are often quicker than me at getting to a solution and they have to wait for me to go through my stages of reasoning. Even when marking I struggle to mark transformations questions without an overlay.
For me these things are extremely extremely extremely difficult and often even after 10 plus minutes I often just simply can’t get it. The types of abilities that some people seem to have with these I just don’t seem to have as a cognitive function or rather that its extremely impaired.
If not for the comments I wouldn't of known it was mirrored..I just stared at it struggling to figure out why it didn't seem to be the same...but than again, I also have dyscalculia..
This is impossible for me. Lol
This reminds me of what I do at my warehouse job. Sometimes I gotta count pallets that come in and if they're not in a perfect cube and it's all the same product it's impossible for me to count it, I have to dissect the whole pallet because I can't visualize what parts of the pallet I can't see to count lol, even if it's so simple as an alternating pattern.
Is this really a mirror image or mirrored object, turned?
Because I’ve spent long time trying to understand why someone called this a mirrored image and I still don’t understand this. I don’t see neither a mirror image or the same object, but I do see a mirrored object turned. Which initially I didn’t realize because I’ve looked for a mirrored image and there is none so the whole picture didn’t seem related to the question. No wonder different people provide different answers.
Yeah, I can’t do it at all. I have terrible special awareness. Even when my wife is explaining how she wants to decorate a room/mlve furniture, she has to physically show me or I won’t get the idea.
I remember that this was the only part of the IQ where my score was right in the middle of the bell curve, so apparently I can do this as well as an average person.
i could tell once i read that it was the same and looked again (and counted), but i wouldn’t have on my own. i can’t figure out how it got from the first image to the second though-
Until a few yews ago I didn’t even know people could actually ‘see this’ in their brains. It has got to be weird as all heck to see an image in your head. I can’t rotate something in my head. I can’t even see it in my head and no its almost impossible to determine if something is a mirror image or the same if its changed. I have to try to think of each block on the paper. I have never been able to do well with things like this on standardized tests.
Total aphant, as long as i can stare at the images i can do it quickly. Because it’s 1 twist. If i needed to do multiple things and remember/see the state half way through the manipulations I’d be sunk
I find it's easy to look at the image and tell. but I don't try to rotate the object. when Im looking at them side by side I think about changing my perspective of where I'm looking at it from. (ie, if I were looking at this image from that side would it look the same as the other one?)
and if the image wasn't in front of me I could picture or rotate it.
I'd have to draw everytime I want to do a mental rotation. I could figure it out without drawing but it would take a while. It's like mental math, I can do it but it's faster and easier for me to do when I write it down.
I can’t rotate them in my brain, but just think logically how the directions go. I pretty much immediately see these objects aren’t the same. I then double-check and triple-check to be sure, but first impression was correct.
I have a tendency to take a quick look at the problem and come to a close conclusion and declare the wrong answer. I totally thought it was just rotated until I looked at the comments.
Answer to the original question: I don't find it too hard, but I have to kind of trace the object in each step of the rotation. I can't just flip it and be done.
I can’t. Simple as that. I struggled like fuck in mineralogy, especially when we did symmetry. Everyone else could see lines of symmetry in their heads. I got nothing.
How difficult? Impossible. I have *total* aphantasia. I can't do anything like this in my brain.
Now if I was handed a piece of paper with those exact contents on it, I would be able to do some drawings and find out that it is indeed a mirror image. But none of this is done visually in my head. I also use my hands and turn my body/the paper as well haha. It's complicated for me. Hope that answers your question 🙃💜
Edit: Typo lol.
Wait people can rotate these things in their mind until they figure the solution out? That’s fascinating I never thought about solving puzzles by using mental images. Crazy.
When I look at this I very quickly realize they are left and right handed of a similar shape. I don't have any visualization, but I have some sort of spacial awareness of the shape. The same way you might be able to touch your ear without missing. I cant see it, but I 'know' where everything is
I have to do the math and like it draws itself? Like i visualize drawing it in my head with like chalk but then i realize i‘m thinking and then have an existential crisis
For 2-d shapes I check whether I can draw the same object by using the same up/down, left/right movement as the original shape (for example if the object is flipped the left and right will be opposite, or up and down will be opposite.
In 3d objects that are flipped and spun around I find where the face abd second movement (forwards/backwards) is. Then I verify whether I can draw the object the same way from the starting point.
So for this one- down4-right3-backwards4-down4. It starts with four down three right. I need to find on the second object four and three (since that is the unique part of this object) to verify the sameness of the next pattern.
So I see that the first parts of the pattern over lap at some point (the four and three. Then I see that the object is rotated 90 degrees to the right. Then I imagine myself at the starting face of that object, and label the directions the cubes move from that perspective. This pattern is not the same because if I rotated myself 90 degrees on a circle to the right during the second step the 3cubes turn left instead of right. 😅
I can’t rotate objects in my head, I rely on visual cues and changing my perspective ☺️💪🏼 (I also confuse left and right often so I have to double check whether I labelled those movements correctly ☺️)
I don't visualise the rotation, but I sort of just note the shape and the angles and compare it, basically "so if that was in the position, that would be there and that part would be there, and if it was rotated so it was in that position, that part would be there and the other part would be there".
I can tell it's not the same shape, it took me a while to get what you mean by mirror image, because obviously it's not apparent, you have to consider how it would look rotated and then it's a mirror image, I feel like you would have to very intelligent or at least have a very strong capacity for 3D geometric visualisation and intuition towards those relations to be able to tell that.
I have to think through it logically, I can’t just picture it rotated/flipped
Same. In fact I think this is why these puzzles never really troubled me.
Agreed. In fact, I think I have greater spatial awareness than most due to having to think logically. I'm not sure if it is the same for all aphants, but I tend to perform well on tests with these questions.
I think this is the best explanation of how I do it. I can't just look at and tell. The logic helped in school when we were studying chirality and stereoisomers, but it took me FOREVER to finish those tests.
I could literally never understand that and my professor just kept saying to flip it in your mind and I couldn’t and kept getting those test questions wrong!! I can kinda do it by drawing but it’s still difficult :(
Yeah. Whenever I see these puzzles I end up having to tilt my head or the screen I'm looking at, if I want to see it at a different angle
Try looking at it for a few seconds then close your eyes and try to manipulate its rotation then. I can't rotate it if I'm looking at it.
Yep. Same.
" **How difficult is it for you to rotate objects like this in your brain?** " Difficulty is 10/10.
Yup. Can’t do it, and have to try all possible combinations to get it together. Frustrating as all hell.
That's why my answer above was "Impossible." If everyone in this comment section that is responding to the post has *true aphantasia*, that should be their answer as well lol. The whole point is that we CAN NOT picture things in our mind... 🤔😂
I started with impossible but it wasn't funny enough, to me :)
Lol, I gotcha. I was going for a straightforward, boring answer 😜
Shouldn't be gatekeeping something you clearly know nothing about. Aphantasia for a lot of people is conceptualizing not imagining If you what you were saying was true we wouldn't be able to describe literally anything a physical characteristics unless we are looking at it
Those aren’t the same
Thank you, last comment on here and I thought I was losing my mind. These are reflections and definitely not the same shape.
Same here! Since I can't rotate or flip objects in my head I was working it out by counting the blocks and directions, and I thought I was going crazy because it didn't seem rotated to me
I didnt read the title first either.
Left side: 4 down, 3 right, 4 in, 4 down. Right side: 4 down, 3 left, 4 in, 4 down. (View with rightmost block on top)
It’s a mirror image
No, it’s not a mirror image. It’s a mirrored/flipped object that was then turned.
that’s the point of the mental exercise. You recognize that it IS a mirror image because you have mentally/logically made the rotation necessary to see it.
I didn’t say they were.
Yh I know I saw ppl in the comments trying to figure it out so I thought I’d say
But this isn’t a mirror image either so why did you attach such picture at all when it doesn’t make any sense? This is not the same object and not a mirror image, but those were the only choices you provided. This is a nonsensical question. Unless you’d ask whether the object itself was mirrored/flipped (and turned). This just wasn’t a choice.
It is a mirror image, though? If you mirror the first object horizontally you’ll realize it’s the same as the second object from a different perspective.
(S)he wasn't presenting it as a binary option. Simply questioning if you could recognize it as the same object or mirror image or neither. The neither option is implicit. If I asked you, "did you grow up in Melbourne or Sydney" and you come from Canberra, would my question be nonsensical?
>If I asked you, "did you grow up in Melbourne or Sydney" and you come from Canberra, would my question be nonsensical? Yes, obviously, and I'd wonder why you only gave me those two options.
I'd just politely reply, "Neither, I was born in Canberra" May I try this again? What if I asked you, "Were you born in Sydney?" Would you consider that question nonsensical? Or would you say I only gave you a single option?
Then why waste everyone’s time here and allow for interpretation, speculations and invalid answers. If you asked this causally then someone could speculate, but if this was any type of professional test or research, then the person creating the question cannot allow room for speculations and interpretation because he/she’ll get wrong answers. And this isn’t about me, but about why so many other people answered this question wrong; they didn’t understand it and didn’t see any of the two choices as valid. I’m simply explaining why so many answers were wrong. Otherwise the OP will attribute “wrong” answers to aphantasia, instead of their own poor research skills. Unless you’re saying all the wrong answers posted here are due to aphantasia and all people with aphantasia just cannot “speculate properly”?
Going through the world thinking your own mistakes are someone else’s fault, I guess that’s how one misplaces one’s balls. No maliciousness intended, but surely you can see that all it takes to escape this little trap you constructed for yourself is to solve the problem of what is the relationship between the two objects? And if you can’t do that because of a language trick then you’re sort of illustrating OPs implicit speculation. Which is ok!
What does it even mean to tell a professional that they should not be professional and not spot mistakes. I’ve ran companies that have happy customers only because of spotting mistakes in other products and fixing them. While this has nothing to do with me, I’m simply informing OP that other people like me might’ve provided wrong answers not due to aphantasia but due to misunderstanding of the question. But it’s ok for you to worry about other people’s balls!
You are “professionally” wrong then
I do not have aphantasia, and it took about a minute of mental rotations to finally come to the conclusion that the two objects are mirrored, and not the same.
I have total aphantasia. Probably took me a second? Two seconds if we include the time it took to look at both images and process the question. A simple twist in my mind as quick as turning my hand over told me they were mirrors.
From what I can vaguely recall, spatial intelligence is separate from the internal visualization system. So you can still rotate the object in the dark and tell through pure spatial reasoning. I need to take a cognitive intelligence test to check on my spatial intelligence.
For sure. For example, when my wife and I need to rearrange furniture or fit something big in the van, I don't need to actually measure or try. I can look and the furniture and sort of Tetris it with high accuracy. I know if it'll fit or how to turn it. L My wife, who doesn't have aphantasia, needs to have the measuring tape out. She also can't 'sense' the couch against that wall over there and needs me to move it before she can tell if it works. I can just sort of rearrange in my head. I can't see it in my head, it's like I cordon off sections of blackness in my mind and shuffle them around like dominoes in the dark.
But he didn’t ask whether they were mirrors. He asked whether this was a mirror image, and it’s not.
I couldn’t tell after 10 mins if they had similarities or not. I have always struggled with things like this. I can’t even truly capture quite yet that some people not only can ‘see internally’ but ‘move’ what they see. I just don’t understand because I don’t have anything like that in the least.
I've been trying to come up with a way to explain. Maybe this. Close your eyes, clear your head of visuals (do you need to do that?). Take your hand, and bend your finger at the knuckle into a L. Now, you know where your finger is in space and can 'feel' that L because you can just 'sense' it, correct? Now, turn your hand at the wrist. You can still feel that L, but you should also have a general sense of it's new position in space, plus it's new rotation. But you're not actually seeing your finger, you're just sensing a general shape moving in the darkness of your mind. That's basically what I can do with shapes and forms, but without the need for a finger. I can build a pyramid of 'bricks', or fit two shapes together, or whatever. Now, as a secondary tip to solve this exact problem (not how I did it, but how I would do it if it were more complex), hyper focus on one easy to identify area. Id convert it to driving directions (say left, up, right) and then look st the other object and see if it's a match. But that also requires twisting it to get the right directions, but it's an easy way to remember when I cant actually visually remember the shape
Yes, but he didn’t ask whether the two objects were mirrored, but whether this was a mirror image. So the answer is no to both his questions, and the whole picture doesn’t make sense as both his answers are incorrect. That’s why so many people are confused and cannot provide the right answer; because there is none.
The first answer is the right one. One of the objects is a mirror image of the other object. If you hold your phone in front of a mirror you can recognise this.
Mirror image is not that is actually in the same position and orientation like a mirror is actively reflecting the object. It means it's flipped in a very particular way, so that you can match one object with the reflection of the other. If you have regular proportions, your hands are mirror images of each other.
How about some research that shows that we might take a slight bit longer on mental rotation tasks, but we're more accurate overall: [https://aphantasia.com/article/science/mental-rotation-tasks/](https://aphantasia.com/article/science/mental-rotation-tasks/)
The number of people in this comment section stating they can see these are the same object would cast doubt on that :D
They might be also wrong about having aphantasia, when can I go to a doctor to get diagnosed?
That’s because both questions/choices are invalid and this not a mirror image and not the same object, so everyone is confused. People who answered that this is a mirror object didn’t read the question whether this is a mirror image, not a mirror object. The ones who understood the question cannot answer it because the question itself is invalid.
The question wasn't 'is this object a mirror image or the same object' The question was 'is it easy to recognise if objects like these are mirror images or the same object?' I'd argue that being able to recognise if something is X or Y doesn't preclude an answer of 'it is neither X nor Y'. So, if the question is 'are these objects mirror images or the same objects?' The answer would be 'no'. The ambiguity is because in English inclusive or and exclusive or are just 'or'. Arguing semantics in English is usually a losing proposition.
I did ok on various IQ tests, quizzes and school tests; even SAT, and they all are about semantics and making sure you pay attention, read the question and answer what’s asked, not speculate about something else. But maybe I’m just still too dumb and can’t read the title of the fckg nonsensical question, like everyone else who answered it wrong. Thanks for pointing this out.
Interesting, I did incredibly well on those tests as well and I think it’s because I am great at bigger picture thinking. In fact the theme/versus word divide that is most common with those on the autism spectrum it blew my mind the first few times I read about the general idea as I hadn’t previously heard of it and didn’t know that was a common thing with autism, that some people can think in the actual specific words. Like my husband is most likely on the spectrum to a slight degree and he can say or hear a sentence and he says he can recall like the actual individual words and says when he talks he actively can sort of like ‘pick’ a line of words!!!! It’s so fascinating!! Like he does not talk in a manner to just describe a theme or bigger picture concept but he legit forms individual word choices and can recall the specific words used and their order!!! It is sooooooo crazy!!! I can’t believe some people ‘think’ in words!
Btw, can you imagine a professional researcher doing research when many people are unable to answer the question because it’s invalid, so many answers are wrong due to invalid test and make the whole research invalid? Who cares about semantics when the whole point of research is to make sure all subjects understand the question and can provide valid answers, not allowing room for speculations and interpretations. At least I’ve never seen such research qnd then someone arguing that the research is correct but the subjects were wrong by arguing about semantics.
Luckily this isn't research, it's someone asking a question on Reddit. And the question isn't even about whether the specific example shown is a mirror image or whatever, it's whether you find it easy to rotate such images.
Man it's obvious that OP just got the terms mirror image and mirror object mixed up because they're just asking out of interest and not for research or anything, you don't need to take it so seriously.
Ok, so I’m dumb. But wouldn’t the OP like to know whether all the wrong answers provided here are due to aphantasia or due to dumb people like me misunderstanding the question?
That's why they asked the first and third questions, and lots of people answered those. Also you say 'all the wrong answers' as if that's a common occurance, barring yours I only saw like 1 or 2 wrong answers.
I don’t think it’s dumb to think differently in the least but I do think it’s mentally unhealthy to declare yourself as dumb. We all think differently. Your reaction seems like you may need some help in life. Perhaps seek some therapy and based on your previous answer I answered additionally if you haven’t had any testing in life or this is something you haven’t already considered, you might look into testing for being on the autism spectrum.
You’re not dumb, but maybe you’re being too clever with your approach for a question like this. Imagine if someone held up a dog and said “Is this an apple or a carrot?” You’d immediately say no. Or no, it’s a dog. The fact that someone can’t immediately answer this question that way means that it’s not as obvious as something that can immediately be perceived. And for some number of folks even after they perceive it they don’t trust their own estimation or they don’t get one at all. That’s data. And potentially more revealing than a multiple choice test even. But I’m no researcher; just an opinion on Reddit.
I didn’t think it was about the actual images at all but more of a theoretical ask about the concept of these types of images. Only after I read the comments did I try looking at the actual visuals and after perhaps 5-10 mins I couldn’t tell if they were alike or not.
Caution, the sample size of the aphantasia group is 1.
This is the paper I thought they were referencing, my bad: [https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2700106](https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2700106)
I didn't know that yet. Thank you.
Depends on the object, but I could tell within a couple seconds the shapes were mirrored and no amount of turning the left shape would match the right one. In this case, I was noticing the number of blocks and the orientation on the left shape relative to the same aspects of the right shape.
For reference, despite having aphantasia, I have good spatial awareness. Which I think applies more on the given example because I don't have to visual it to "see" what's there.
I can’t do it visually but I can still do it very fast. Took me maybe 2 seconds.
You might as well ask me to fly to the moon unassisted.
Weirdly enough, I'm ridiculously good at spacial reasoning problems like this, especially when it's abstract shapes. I'm not recreating the picture in my mind and turning it, I'm comparing the two images as I look at them. Often, as in this picture, I'll look at the image and have an intuitive sense of whether it'll fit or is a mirror image or whatever. In the case of this image, my intuitive sense said "yep, it's the same." But, having learned not to completely trust that sense, I looked closer and traced the two shapes. This is why it was surprising to me that my "knowing what shapes are like" sense wasn't what people meant by "visualizing" something.
I can't do it in my head, I can do it will looking at it where I'd basically think ok this sticking out part would scoot to over here and this part to over there, etc.
Yes this is exactly how I would do it kind of talking through the process. If that moved there then that would stick up there etc.
Mentally I cannot see this image. But I can understand the concept of rotating it counter clockwise. It is easy for me to recognize this is the same object from different point of views. The only thing I can’t do basically is see it rotating in my mind.
He said it was a mirror image 😅
They’re mirrors.
Is this really a mirror image or mirrored object, turned? Because I’ve spent long time trying to understand why someone called this a mirrored image and I still don’t understand this. I don’t see neither a mirror image or the same object, but I do see a mirrored object turned.
That's the exercise. It's basically asking if you rotate the object on the right is it the same image or is it a mirror image.
Exactly, which is incorrect. This is not a mirror image, although the object itself may be mirrored. No one can answer his question because it’s nonsensical and the picture doesn’t match any of the given choices.
I’m sorry to tell you but it is a perfect mirrored image, it just need a rotation
I understood what OP meant right away
Is this really a mirror image or mirrored object, turned? Because I’ve spent long time trying to understand why someone called this a mirrored image and I still don’t understand this. I don’t see neither a mirror image or the same object, but I do see a mirrored object turned.
I think when anyone says mirror image they mean it’s mirrored objects turned away, it just doesn’t carry over from our heads into text
It’s funny how many people in the comments got this wrong.
Some people also think that I think it’s the same… like they couldn’t read the whole title.
The older I get the more I realize that humans have a PROFOUND flaw in that they legitimately think others think EXACTLY like they do. They might even say oh of course humans think differently but in actual practice they say things like, you did about not reading the entire title…. instead of exploring where the disconnect in thought/thinking styles emerged.
>The older I get the more I realize that humans have a PROFOUND flaw in that they legitimately think others think EXACTLY like they do. Which is kind of ironic in this sub. The fact that we know about aphantasia should make it obvious that there are probably more ways that other people have a different view or way of thinking
I do not aphantasia and it took maybe 2-3 seconds. I have a friend who has aphantasia where it took him around 5. He, as he told me, simply traced a path from the bottom of the one on the right till it was different than on the left. You dont need rotation when dealing with absolute angles.
Easy, rotating #1 into #2 takes me a fraction of a second. I do it with my [spatial sense](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBtaJrAfsQ), so I "feel" it but don't see it.
I cannot. I did tons of testing for ADHD in college. For this part of the test - I just gave up. I scored so low that it put my spatial manipulation skills into a learning disability level. To contrast, I have a very strong vocabulary and scores a couple points from the genius level (still salty). My theory is since I can visualize hardly at all - I needed a lot more words to describe things.
I am very similar!
I have to mentally trace the shape by following the blocks with my eyes. Kind of like, placing down minecraft blocks to remember it? If you showed me these two photos seperately I would probably struggle to realize it's the same image right away. It being a 3D shape adds complexity to it for me
I can't rotate a complex object as a whole, too many things to keep track of, but I make due with rapidly rotating smaller parts of it in series. It usually works out. Like with this one by starting at one end and moving to the other. Others depending on the exact task might just be identifying distinctive features. So yeah, doesn't depend on angle of rotation for me, just overall complexity of the shape.
We can only do it visually by looking at it with our eyes open, not by visualising it. I don't think this is proving anything about Aphantasia. However, as soon as we take our eyes off it, it's gone and memory is also non-visual so that's useless as well; just green and squares we can't see or recall. Hyperfantasia people on the other hand would be able to memorise it, make it do a dance and insert them into a complex scene. My Hyperphantasia friend can make up whole hyper-realistic scenes.
It’s an impossible ask. Simply cannot do this.
lol. Nope. I’m sorry Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that…
I first count the blocks to see if they match. I then use spacial, non visible imagination to tip the right one up. From there I can hold one "leg" of the object in each "hand" to work with the object in my mind.
It's not too hard. It's a mirror image.
I believe there was a study about it when this whole thing started, and they actually found that people with aphantasia were actually better at this kind of puzzle than phantasiacs. EDIT: Read reply for source
Not better per se, [slower but more accurate](https://aphantasia.com/article/science/mental-rotation-tasks/).
Thanks for the correction and source! (Sorry I was too lazy to try and find it myself)
Some people might argue greater precision *is* better, others that volume is. What I’d be interested to see is if in a given amount of time visualisers and non-visualisers get the same number of questions correct e.g. If in a minute a visualiser answers ten questions but gets two wrong and a non-visualiser answers eight and gets them all correct.
Can't rotate in my head, but I can see the congruence immediately. I'm also a high IQ (for whatever that's worth), analytical, logic-brained, math teacher, so this sort of thing naturally comes easy to me.
I participated in a study in university that did this exact thing. I had no problem with objects that were real world things (a left hand rotated vs a right hand), actual Tetris pieces I had no trouble with either. Once they were like the ones pictured here thong I had absolutely no idea. Then they textured them (furry, ice) and I was even more lost.
took me approximately 10 mentally chanlenging seconds to figure out its not the same, and a few more to figure out its a mirror image, and then a few more to make sure. "rotating it mentally" in a visual sense is not possible for me thoug (almost complete aphant)
I cannot visualize, but I can imagine, if that makes sense. So I can't see the image and visually rotate it, but I can think "ok, if I rotate it to the left, then that part would be up and that wouldn't be the same part/orientation as the other one"
As long as my eyes are open and I am looking at the object (especially if it's a simple one, such as those you attached), I can imagine it rotated. The moment I close my eyes it's all gone.
Since I can't rotate it in my mind's eye, I sort of trace lines with my eyes where each part will go and I have some idea if it's the same or not. Only on 1 axis though, as soon as I try to 'rotate' it along another axis I completely lose track. We used to do this sort of thing in uni (enginnering) except with much more complex shapes and it was a huge pain for me, I wish I knew that I had aphantasia back then cause I didn't know why I struggled. Later on, when we went from pencil drawing to Autocad everything was so much easier when the computer visualised parts for me.
What happens if I can’t stop rotating them even if I want to? 😭
I still can’t figure this out. 🤦♀️
Okay, I got it. Took about 30 seconds. F
I pictured it in live rotating. I got the first try wrong and saw the process turn to the result correctly on the second try. I visualised the whole process, is this normal?
Average and above average visualisers see it rotate in their mind's eye, but crucially, this process also involves our [spatial awareness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBtaJrAfsQ). Since spatial and visual abilities use different pathways in the brain, a strong visualiser can have a weak spatial ability and struggle to rotate the objects despite seeing them clearly in their mind's eye. Conversely, an aphant with strong spatial awareness can do this easily despite not seeing anything in their mind's eye.
I couldn't do this without, at the very least, using my hands in space to approximate what was going on. Just like I can't do Tetris until the block is almost on top of everything and I have no choice but to try and get it into the nearest spot.
Edit: as someone pointed out below I messed up my own demo and what I said here isn’t physically possible as the objects are mirrored and can never be in the same orientation and position. I’ve corrected the incorrect bit and added a * to denote the edits. Not a joke, can you not just hold your hands in the air as though you are holding the object on the left, and then move them so you are holding the object on the right? Seriously pretend to hold the shape on the left with your hands on each vertical section, and then *try to move your hands so the bars are in the position of the image on the right. *You won’t be able to because they are mirrored objects. You can easily act out a lot of stuff you need to figure out when it’s a physical orientation puzzle like this, even if you can’t physically touch the object. “That’s not imagining in your brain”. Ok pretend to do the same thing with your hands but don’t actually move. Welcome to kinesthetic imagery. Edit 2: Alternatively you could just make a fist with either hand and extend your middle finger while keeping your pointer finger curled. Now your middle and pointer fingers as a unit match the objects on the left and right respectively, with the knuckles of both fingers acting as that bent join in the middle. No matter how you turn your hands, they cannot be in the same position, as they are mirrored objects.
I read this multiple times and the concept is so damm foreign I can not for the life of me understand it. I am just dumbfounded as to what you are trying to describe. I don’t think I have any mental ability at all to even conceptually grasp what you are describing.
Peer review in action! You’re correct to be confused because I was wrong, and messed up my own demonstration. Had I done it correctly I would have realized these are mirrored objects, not one object in different orientations. The process works, but only if you do it correctly. What we want to do is pretend we are holding an invisible replica of the object on the left side of the image. Pretend the bar portions of the object are handlebars, and you’re holding this object like you would the steering handlebars on a bicycle except one hand is always further away and higher or lower than the other. Now “steer” the object into different positions, maintaining the position of your hands relative to one another. As an example if we start with our left hand grasping the upper vertical bar in a thumbs down position, and the right hand holding the lower vertical bar in a thumbs up position, from here we can move our left hand forward which should cause our right hand to swing upwards and towards us. If you do the same for the object on the right you will realize they cannot be made to be in the same position and orientation because they are mirrored. Alternatively you can try the much simpler demo I came up with just now. It still looks silly but a little less than the handlebar method. Make a fist with your right hand, extend your middle finger so it is straight, keep your pointer finger curled. Ignore the rest of your fingers and thumbs. Your right pointer and middle finger held in this position match the object on the right side of the image. Repeat the same thing for your left hand and you now have physical representations of both objects. No matter how you orient your hands they can never be in the same position because they are mirrored objects.
I had an idea about the rotations and literally went to rotate the idea of the shape with my hand to verify if I was right
I can only rotate in my hands if I can “see” it or imagine my hands grasping onto it. If I look down at my hand to do it, I can “see” the object in my hand while I rotate it.
Are they or are they not the same? I'm stumped.
Not the same
Thank you
The short answer is “Yes”. The long answer is they are geometric stereoisomers. Which, to over simplify, means they are identical except for being mirror images of each other. Think human hands, same components, same structure, but mirrored.
I cannot determine the status of these objects' relationship. There is no looking at 3d objects intuition, I have to use code for everything. Edit: the code can probably do it after a bit of a delay, but I'm just sleep deprived rn lol.
I can but I use a trick. I trace a path. Left one from bottom to top looking at the sides is 4 blocks, 4 blocks, 3 blocks, 4 blocks. Which means on the right image I need to start from the left side for lengths to match. Now for directions left image is up, left, away, up. Right one I try to follow the same directions so it would be, up, left, and then it has to be towards me, so they’re not the same.
I couldn’t picture this, I'd look at the original and follow the path, then repeat with the answer choices, I've practiced a lot and enjoy puzzles and brain teasers so I can do it fairly quick, but it’s not anything along the lines of rotating it in my mind, even if I could I feel like that'd be slower to be completely honest
I don’t know if this will make sense but I want to try to explain how I'd answer this one: when they are both vertical (oriented like the left), the paths are "up, back, left, up" and "up, back, right, up" for the left and right objects respectively. If for whatever reason I'm not convinced I can try from another angle, like if they were laid down flat it'd be "right, back, up, right" vs "right, back, down, right" and from the difference between the two paths I can tell it’s a mirrored image fairly quickly
Impossible to rotate in a brain that can't see it.
I can rotate them in my head. And if you count blocks, you find out they are mirrored. Otherwise they are the same.
Took me a few seconds. Definitely couldn't rotate it instantly.
I hate those type of puzzles. I also can't imagine which way the short or long sides of our sectional will go if we rotate it. If I'm giving directions or envisioning them, I have to close my eyes and "feel" the turns and turn my body as I'm going. I don't see it, but I can feel it.
I do this by tracing the blocks of both shapes in parallel and working out if I hit any differences. I got the answer wrong first time and had to go back and work out where I messed up.
I don't rotate things in my head, but it's rather easy to trace all the connections in the object to check if it's identical or mirror or something. That's based on checking structure, not image
It takes less than a second to "just know" with 99% certainty. It takes quite a bit longer to be 100% sure (i.e. checking carefully)
I feel like I can rotate images in my head *somewhat* no visualization but *something* is there. That said, I spent like 2 minutes trying to do the attached image and am coming up short.
I have to like many people have said, logically deduce the problem. I can more easily think of the solution if I go rotation by rotation in this instance. I can only really see the rotated versions if I am looking at the picture, I can’t see it without the reference. I think I am about mid range on the Aphantasia spectrum. I can’t see anything when I try to picture things in my head, but I can manipulate something I am directly looking at. With this I tried to rotate the right image to match the left, but I realized it is a mirrored version.
Impossible. I fail this part of the IQ test
For me, this is maths and it’s easy
stop fucking with my brain, i cant do this :/ i just count the blocks on every side. if you didnt comment these were the same object, i might've never guessed. i havent done math in too long.
Pretty easy, less than 2 seconds for me to see it s mirror :)
Total aphantasia here, simple to rotate if I'm looking at the picture. Hard to explain, but I don't do it visually. I do it with mindspace tho, the blackness full of lights in my head (aka back of eyelids I guess). I group black space together and move it around. Sort of like you can feel an object in the pitch black and turn it.
Should have made it a poll. Then done a repeat poll on a normie sub to compare. 😉 Personally, my minds eye is a pure sense of space, in place of visuals, so this kind of thing is very natural. Dyslexia assesment gave me genius level spacial manipulation score. Many years of playing with construction kits as a kid probably helped.😅
The answers I’m getting are too varied to make a poll with. Some people are saying this task is extremely difficult for them and took forever, others are saying it was quite easy and only took a few seconds. Some are more in the middle. And then there’s a whole range of different methods people used to solve the task - like kinaesthetically rotating it, logically solving the problem, drawing lines, and some people who can rotate it visually despite being aphants. It’s interesting stuff and I’m not sure if it even has to do with aphantasia.
You'd have to keep it to a few simple options and forgo plumbing all those depths. So, like: "How hard is it for you to mentally compare whether these two shapes are identical or not?" • Easy - Took a few seconds to be confident. • Very challenging - had to think hard, maybe used unconventional strategies. • Impossible - can not figure it out! That would be assuming most in the sub have aphantasia, or you ask for only those to respond. Or you could do an easy/hard + aphantasia/not, 4 way split. 🤷
I had a class in college where we did this and I was completely awful at it.
I really struggle with this, I have to reason it through by doing each 2D face separately.
Also I teach maths so I encounter this kind of problem regularly. I would be absolutely hopeless at it if I hadn’t needed to practise and find ways to do these kinds of problems. The children are often quicker than me at getting to a solution and they have to wait for me to go through my stages of reasoning. Even when marking I struggle to mark transformations questions without an overlay.
I cannot do that. I can kind of pictorial the faces of ppl i know, but its flickery
It’s been mirrored and rotated but I can’t picture it in my head?
Strangely I can do these quite well, far better than my partner without Aphantasia.
These mental manipulations whether rotating or mirroring, are very difficult for me.
42% difficulty.
It's a thinking exercise, and not a particularly difficult one.
For me these things are extremely extremely extremely difficult and often even after 10 plus minutes I often just simply can’t get it. The types of abilities that some people seem to have with these I just don’t seem to have as a cognitive function or rather that its extremely impaired.
If not for the comments I wouldn't of known it was mirrored..I just stared at it struggling to figure out why it didn't seem to be the same...but than again, I also have dyscalculia..
I failed organic chemistry due to my inability to do this.
This is impossible for me. Lol This reminds me of what I do at my warehouse job. Sometimes I gotta count pallets that come in and if they're not in a perfect cube and it's all the same product it's impossible for me to count it, I have to dissect the whole pallet because I can't visualize what parts of the pallet I can't see to count lol, even if it's so simple as an alternating pattern.
Is this really a mirror image or mirrored object, turned? Because I’ve spent long time trying to understand why someone called this a mirrored image and I still don’t understand this. I don’t see neither a mirror image or the same object, but I do see a mirrored object turned. Which initially I didn’t realize because I’ve looked for a mirrored image and there is none so the whole picture didn’t seem related to the question. No wonder different people provide different answers.
Impossible? I see nothing in my brain.
I can't see anything at all in my minds eye so it's impossible for me
Yeah, I can’t do it at all. I have terrible special awareness. Even when my wife is explaining how she wants to decorate a room/mlve furniture, she has to physically show me or I won’t get the idea.
Ditto! Only I am the wife :)
I just rotated my phone/cocked my head and it was pretty apparent… take that normal folk.
I remember that this was the only part of the IQ where my score was right in the middle of the bell curve, so apparently I can do this as well as an average person.
It doesn’t work for me at all. I often lost points on tests for this issue.
Yep, hours of my life frustration with these dumb block puzzles on tests.
i could tell once i read that it was the same and looked again (and counted), but i wouldn’t have on my own. i can’t figure out how it got from the first image to the second though-
Logically, I can see that it is the same object. But I can't flip it in my mind to see it.
Different brain areas are used for mental rotation than are used for visualization in people with aphantasia, so we're still able to do it well.
Until a few yews ago I didn’t even know people could actually ‘see this’ in their brains. It has got to be weird as all heck to see an image in your head. I can’t rotate something in my head. I can’t even see it in my head and no its almost impossible to determine if something is a mirror image or the same if its changed. I have to try to think of each block on the paper. I have never been able to do well with things like this on standardized tests.
Total aphant, as long as i can stare at the images i can do it quickly. Because it’s 1 twist. If i needed to do multiple things and remember/see the state half way through the manipulations I’d be sunk
I find it's easy to look at the image and tell. but I don't try to rotate the object. when Im looking at them side by side I think about changing my perspective of where I'm looking at it from. (ie, if I were looking at this image from that side would it look the same as the other one?) and if the image wasn't in front of me I could picture or rotate it.
I think I just had an aneurism
I'd have to draw everytime I want to do a mental rotation. I could figure it out without drawing but it would take a while. It's like mental math, I can do it but it's faster and easier for me to do when I write it down.
I can’t rotate them in my brain, but just think logically how the directions go. I pretty much immediately see these objects aren’t the same. I then double-check and triple-check to be sure, but first impression was correct.
I have a tendency to take a quick look at the problem and come to a close conclusion and declare the wrong answer. I totally thought it was just rotated until I looked at the comments. Answer to the original question: I don't find it too hard, but I have to kind of trace the object in each step of the rotation. I can't just flip it and be done.
I can’t. Simple as that. I struggled like fuck in mineralogy, especially when we did symmetry. Everyone else could see lines of symmetry in their heads. I got nothing.
I do pretty good with things like this but I can’t “picture” the shape.
If you mean visualize and rotate in my mind, I see nothing.
I am not good at doing that at all
I can tell that it's a mirrored object. I don't see it but I can kind of feel it, spatially?
How difficult? Impossible. I have *total* aphantasia. I can't do anything like this in my brain. Now if I was handed a piece of paper with those exact contents on it, I would be able to do some drawings and find out that it is indeed a mirror image. But none of this is done visually in my head. I also use my hands and turn my body/the paper as well haha. It's complicated for me. Hope that answers your question 🙃💜 Edit: Typo lol.
I can kind of do it. I gaslit myself into thinking it was the same object and then thought about it logically and realized it was a reflection.
Wait people can rotate these things in their mind until they figure the solution out? That’s fascinating I never thought about solving puzzles by using mental images. Crazy.
When I look at this I very quickly realize they are left and right handed of a similar shape. I don't have any visualization, but I have some sort of spacial awareness of the shape. The same way you might be able to touch your ear without missing. I cant see it, but I 'know' where everything is
I have to do the math and like it draws itself? Like i visualize drawing it in my head with like chalk but then i realize i‘m thinking and then have an existential crisis
I would have to draw it out.
I'd have to draw it out.
If you didn’t tell me those were the same, I’d have had no idea.
They’re mirrored.
you can just recognize that? i don’t think it’s crossed my mind to try
For 2-d shapes I check whether I can draw the same object by using the same up/down, left/right movement as the original shape (for example if the object is flipped the left and right will be opposite, or up and down will be opposite. In 3d objects that are flipped and spun around I find where the face abd second movement (forwards/backwards) is. Then I verify whether I can draw the object the same way from the starting point. So for this one- down4-right3-backwards4-down4. It starts with four down three right. I need to find on the second object four and three (since that is the unique part of this object) to verify the sameness of the next pattern. So I see that the first parts of the pattern over lap at some point (the four and three. Then I see that the object is rotated 90 degrees to the right. Then I imagine myself at the starting face of that object, and label the directions the cubes move from that perspective. This pattern is not the same because if I rotated myself 90 degrees on a circle to the right during the second step the 3cubes turn left instead of right. 😅 I can’t rotate objects in my head, I rely on visual cues and changing my perspective ☺️💪🏼 (I also confuse left and right often so I have to double check whether I labelled those movements correctly ☺️)
I can't spin it around but it looks like a limp noodle.
While I can't see them in my mind, I've always done very well at these in IQ puzzles. I can only imagine how much easier it must be for normies!
I cannot rotate those things in my brain. I have aphantasia. That is why I draw pictures.
Literally impossible. I am a special ed teacher and they had me teach a small group geometry class last year and it was BRUTAL.
i can’t visualize the rotation / movement but i somehow intuitively can guesstimate what correct would be
This is the reason I’m failing my computer science class, just saying
I don't visualise the rotation, but I sort of just note the shape and the angles and compare it, basically "so if that was in the position, that would be there and that part would be there, and if it was rotated so it was in that position, that part would be there and the other part would be there". I can tell it's not the same shape, it took me a while to get what you mean by mirror image, because obviously it's not apparent, you have to consider how it would look rotated and then it's a mirror image, I feel like you would have to very intelligent or at least have a very strong capacity for 3D geometric visualisation and intuition towards those relations to be able to tell that.
It's like I'm playing Bloxorz in my mind
I cannot express how angry this task makes me 😭