Aphantasia and Visual Processing in Chess: What If We Conceptualized More and Visualized Less?
When you close your eyes, can you visualize the chessboard and its pieces? Of course, if you are like 95% of people, you can. But a notable segment of the population cannot! And if they cannot, what do they do instead? What can we learn from them and apply to our chess games and lives?
I’ve been pondering these questions for the past two months and I found some answers! But, allow me to backtrack for a minute.
Two months ago, I was casually chatting with a friend and she mentioned something quite shocking. She said, “I cannot visualize things. If I close my eyes, I cannot picture an apple. I cannot visualize my children’s faces. I have … aphantasia.”
👁️Aphantasia, I learned, is a spectrum-wide inability to visual images. More formally, according to the Cleveland Clinic, “Aphantasia is a characteristic some people have related to how their mind and imagination work. Having it means you don’t have a visual imagination, keeping you from picturing things in your mind. People often don’t realize they have it, and it’s not a disability or medical condition.”
What!? I was confused. For someone like myself, who can vividly visualize anything and dream in a symphony of vivid, kaleidoscopic colours, where each imagery feels so authentic I might just confuse it for reality, this made no sense!
My wheels were spinning. How is this possible?
“Ah, so you can’t play chess,” I blurted instinctively, before quickly regretting the silly remark. My gosh, how wrong was I!? While not a chess player, this very friend of mine happens to be a finance guru. An overachiever, if I may. And if she was a chess player - I bet she'd be brilliant!
At about the same time period, I happened to play a chess puzzle duel with a kid who was diagnosed with a visual processing learning disability. This means, that while he is able to visualize, the kid has difficulty processing imagery, live or imaginary. If you unexpectedly toss a ball to this child, you will knock him out, because he didn’t see it coming, and didn’t react in time. But with advance warning, things are different.
His mother was told that he’ll always have trouble with subjects like math, science, certain sports, and anything that requires visual processing … like chess.
But here is the conundrum: the kid is already good at chess!
So, readers, here I am, racing to solve chess puzzles against this kid as they appear on the screen. His rating is 1000 below mine, and I’m losing … badly. He’s too fast!
What is going on? 🤷♀️
No, no, I’m a very good chess player, believe me. That’s not the issue, please.
The answer to this conundrum started to reveal itself as I researched the topic and just now started to understand the bits of it. Hence, I wanted to share with you these little stories, the findings, and my brief thoughts.
Visualization vs Conceptualization
In his Inner Cosmos podcast, Ep59 “Do you visualize like I do?” David Eagleman explores the topic of aphantasia and how different people perceive things differently. He interviews the creator of the Pixar Animation Studios, Ed Catmull who happens to have, ta-da-da-daam, aphantasia! How can a person who cannot visualize things go on to create something as grand and successful as Pixar Studios?
The answer lies in his ability to conceptualize, rather than visualize. Catmull tells us that many aphatensiac artists he knows are better at art than their non-aphantesiac colleagues because “our brains work in really interesting and different ways and we have different methods of getting it out. …” He continues to explain that when a non-aphantasiac person is asked to draw a horse, he will draw it out of his imagination/visualization of a horse, sometimes missing important details.🐎
An aphantasiac person will stop and really look at the horse model and analyze its details. “People have a misconception that art is about drawing when really art is about seeing,” explains Catmull. “Art is the fundamental skill of observing. It’s looking and trying to see and understand. And which fields do we have where it’s not important to be observant?”
You certainly need to be observant in chess!
Furthermore, Catmull explains that if a processor in a lecture hall uses just visuals, it doesn’t work for Catmull. But if he is able to conceptualize the material, then, to Catmul, he’s a good professor.
Aha! So the key is conceptualization.
💡Conceptualization is the way “our brains create a representation of the information” (3). It can be in the form of mental pictures, verbalization, or a mix of the two.
Now, if you are a chess player, dying to know what this means and how all of this can help you, whether you have aphantasia or not, check out this phenomenal article on Chess Visualization and Aphantasia: A Guide, by Aiden Rayner.
Rayner uses science-backed insights to write articles about adult improvement and “how to make the adult brain better at chess.”
In this guide, he provides practical tips on visualization, work-around, and blind chess. His insights are very helpful in understanding how different brains process chess and how we can improve our game.
He delves into deeper understanding of the subject matter in What Should Happen in Your Head When You Visualize? article. “Visualization does not have to be visual. And for roughly 40% of adult improvers, trying to force it to be visual is a waste of time and energy….The key for each of us is to identify how our unique brain wants to conceptualize and let it do that,” says Raynor (3)
And for that, you need to discover where you are on the Visual/Verbal Thinkers spectrum:
I invite you, urge you, readers, to check out Raynor’s work for deeper understanding of this concept and how it can help you in chess. (Please see the sources section below).
💡Did you know that in the 1930s, a Belgian-American master, George Koltanowski set a world record for the number of games played in a simultaneous blindfold exhibition? And that this very same master did not visualize a thing? Instead, in his George Koltanowski: Blindfold Chess Genius book, he explains that “I do not see the board or pieces in my mind; I just remember the moves and 'feel' the position" (3).
In this 1960 San Francisco Chronicle he wrote further: "My mind is a gramophone record. When I want to know what moves have been made, I start the record in my mind. Then I listen. (3)"
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So, one thing is clear: our brains internalize and process things more differently than we ever imagined and if we can understand how our unique brains work, we can achieve great things.
Conclusion
I now understand why I keep losing my chess duels to this little kid with visual processing disability: because he doesn’t have a “disability” but rather a remarkable ability to conceptualize things differently and faster than my visualization approach.
It’s now time to rethink and challenge my visual processing capabilities. What if I can complement them with a verbal monologue like Koltanowski did or intuition and more "seeing" like Catmull, instead of solely relying on mental imagery?
While I'm always going to remain on a highly visual spectrum, I'm curious if I can work with other information processing methods discussed in the articles above (see Note 1).
I cannot wait to experiment and maybe one day write a sequel to this blog, titled something like “How I Discovered My Unique, Hidden Brain’s Capabilities and Became The World Chess Champion In Just 2 Years!” … He-he. But what if …?
How about you, reader? I am curious to hear your thoughts and experiences on this subject. Please share with me and the community!
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Note 1: When I was seventeen, I took up painting, and after just a few months of observing the nature around me and trying to transfer its beauty onto my canvas, I noticed that I began to see my surroundings in much greater detail. I observed subtle color variations that I previously did not notice and details I had never seen before. A whole new majestic world opened up to me. ... The ability to see such details has diminished as I stopped painting. 🤔
Note2: If you are interested in the subject of neurodiversity, please check out my blog on ADHD + Chess. 🧠
Sources:
1) Inner Cosmos podcast, Ep59 “Do you visualize like I do?” by David Eagleman
2) Chess Visualization and Aphantasia: A Guide, by Aiden Rayner
3) What Should Happen in Your Head When You Visualize? By Martin B. Justesen and guest post by Aiden Rayner
Resources
Blindfold trainer for visualization and conceptualization: because blind chess is love and love is blind!
