Internal playback

[John V]

We have the strange ability to "replay" both sounds and images in our head, hearing and seeing them in a different way to what is coming through our ears and eyes. At least, this is how it seems to me. It's like I have a second smaller screen and sound system in my head. I can play things back seemingly at will.

I'm interested in what this experience is like for other people. Would you describe it in the same way?

What is the quality of your playback like? I find my images are very poor, giving only a very blurry outline of things. I can't properly see detail in faces. However, my sound playback is amazing quality, pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing. It seems to come through at more or less a set volume, which I can't alter much.

Thanks for indulging me

I'd say I'm similar. Me and a friend at work try to stump each other with song lyrics. Typically, I read the lyric, let it percolate for awhile, and eventually my mind matches it with the music. Then once I have the snippet of music, I can hear the rest of the song and I have it. For him, it doesn't work that way. Images, I;m n ot so good at.

I'm also intrigued by the way people search visually for objects. My wife is much better at it than me. Over the years I've figured out the difference in our methods:

- I get a picture of the object in my mind, and scan quickly for that precise image. If the object is in view and matches the image, I'll find it very quickly. But, if it's there but doesn't match the image, I'll skim right over it. For example, if I'm looking for a book and picture it's front cover, but it's on a shelf upside-down, I might pass right over it and then move on to a new search location.

- My wife looks at each object in the location and identifies it before passing over it. Her method takes a little longer, but she's much less likely to pass over the correct object. Her method gives better results over all.

I've tried to switch, but it's difficult, and she's usually around to help out anyway...