I think my inability to image form like this is why I’ve always been so bad at chess.
I can really only hold an image of one word in my mind. If I want to read “God” on the top, I completely lose the second and third rows. I can also write in “Gas” in the first column and read it (barely), but the second I add the second word, everything gets blurred (abstractly). The information just… isn’t there.
Despite this, I’m extremely good at mental rotations… which seems strange because it’s also visual imagery. Somehow, I’m a lot better at holding a shape in my mind and rotating it, than I am at holding a grid in my mind and writing on it.
Growing up always being told how smart I was, it was kind of jarring to be so bad at a simple intelligence task like visual imagery. Chess gave me the hint—in every other game, I’d be trivially top 20% or so after just learning the rules, but in chess, I had to grind for like a 1500 ELO, and just auto-piloting, I can’t even play at a 1200 level consistently.
I think my inability to image form like this is why I’ve always been so bad at chess.
I can really only hold an image of one word in my mind. If I want to read “God” on the top, I completely lose the second and third rows. I can also write in “Gas” in the first column and read it (barely), but the second I add the second word, everything gets blurred (abstractly). The information just… isn’t there.
Despite this, I’m extremely good at mental rotations… which seems strange because it’s also visual imagery. Somehow, I’m a lot better at holding a shape in my mind and rotating it, than I am at holding a grid in my mind and writing on it.
Growing up always being told how smart I was, it was kind of jarring to be so bad at a simple intelligence task like visual imagery. Chess gave me the hint—in every other game, I’d be trivially top 20% or so after just learning the rules, but in chess, I had to grind for like a 1500 ELO, and just auto-piloting, I can’t even play at a 1200 level consistently.
Good life lesson I guess though.