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I have a question OP. Do you read fiction? Recently I've been wondering if aphantasia's why some people don't, almost seen unable, to read and enjoy.
This is a good point... I strongly prefer nonfiction over fiction, but it could just be Autism. I really only read fiction if it is really, really good... but I read them in the same way as I would read a nonfiction book as well, I'd be more interested in the themes of the book
This test was unexpected for me. I love fiction, especially fantasy. I love playing tabletop RPGs. I play solo RPGs and try to imagine the events in my head. I daydream a lot.
But I didn’t have an answer for any of the questions. I believe it’s because I took a utilitarian view to the exercise. I assumed it was about the ball being pushed and the motion of the ball and all of the information the questions asked about was irrelevant. But, I don’t know. I’m also autistic.
I have known people with aphantasia who were avid readers of fiction, and I've read accounts that more or less say "good writing allows me to somewhat vicariously enjoy a sense that I don't have, perhaps similar to how deaf people can enjoy music.". Besides that, fiction is so diverse that the necessity of visualisation ability likely varies across genres, authors, time periods etc..
My gut says that aphantasia would almost certainly affect how people would engage with fiction, but that it's not a determinant of whether they do or not. Ditto for autism (indirectly responding to OP: I have anecdotally found that autistics are rarely ambivalent on fiction — we either can't get enough of it, or can't engage with it at all. Some people I have known have directly attributed their love of fiction to their autistic modes of being)