The fun thing is that for those of us who cannot it’s as hard to believe others can conjure images. Yes the idea of mental imagery is deeply ingrained in our language but I’d always assumed it was allusion till I learned of aphantasia when I was 30.
One of the more cliche, and not super useful tests, is “imagine a ball on a table, someone pushes the ball and it begins to roll. What color is the ball?” For me that was a revelatory statement because I’d never consider that others might give the ball a color, or size, or texture as the imagine it. I assume not everyone with the ability to visualize does but it seems like many do according to the literature. To me it’s just a statement, a ball is rolling pushed by a nondescript person.
One of the more cliche, and not super useful tests, is “imagine a ball on a table, someone pushes the ball and it begins to roll. What color is the ball?” For me that was a revelatory statement because I’d never consider that others might give the ball a color, or size, or texture as the imagine it. I assume not everyone with the ability to visualize does but it seems like many do according to the literature. To me it’s just a statement, a ball is rolling pushed by a nondescript person.