Do you picture what you're reading?

[4691mls]

Occasionally I've read a book where a character is being described and I'm getting a picture in my mind. Then either the narrator or another character says the person looks like _____. (insert name of real life movie star or other famous person) and that movie star looks very different from the picture I was building.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Occasionally I've read a book where a character is being described and I'm getting a picture in my mind. Then either the narrator or another character says the person looks like _____. (insert name of real life movie star or other famous person) and that movie star looks very different from the picture I was building.

I was devastated once when an audiobook narrator pronounced a character's name differently than my mind had been saying it to me for years as I was reading the series.

"Seichan". My mind had been pronouncing her name "SAY chin". But the narrator pronounced it "say SHAWN". My heart just fell. How could this be? I had to abandon the audiobook and go back to reading the book myself. For my own sanity.

[theducks]

I remember getting a physical at the Selective Service prior to enlisting.
I watched persons in front of me, miss many of the colors on the simple Red, Green, White 2 dot (they turn a knob and 2 dots change color) light box. Turns out poor R or G is a more common issue for Males than I thought (I was into Electronics. We use color codes all the time. I had no issue) .

[HLS]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

It's very hard for me to imagine what it's like to never see/taste/smell/hear anything in one's mind..

Same. i can smell and taste in my mind and in dreams is so realistic

[arjaybe]

I just watched an episode of a show from the nineties where someone pulled a fax out of the machine, and I could smell it. I get that a lot.

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I just watched an episode of a show from the nineties where someone pulled a fax out of the machine, and I could smell it. I get that a lot.

And now we have the answer for an older thread: why do characters in books never need a restroom break.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

And now we have the answer for an older thread: why do characters in books never need a restroom break.

Maybe I haven't fully awakened yet, but you're going to have to explain that.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Maybe I haven't fully awakened yet, but you're going to have to explain that.

Would you want to smell THAT?

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Would you want to smell THAT?

Haha, no. But I must admit that it sometimes makes me want to go.-)

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I've always wondered if that's why different people like different colors. One person loves blue while another prefers red.

I've also wondered similarly about taste and food preferences.

When it comes to colors, there may be an argument in favor that colors are more or less the same or very similar for everyone with "normal" color vision; the color red, for instance, is broadly linked to nervousness, violence, or sexual arousal. Clearly this is an evolutionary adaptation to the pigmentation of blood. We don't see blood every day, yet the color does elicit a similar response in a vast majority of people. While it's not a "proof" (as seeing colors remains a fundamentally subjective experience), I struggle convincing myself that what I perceive as "blue" would elicit in someone else the same response as me when I see "red".

In a similar way, blue is known to be a peaceful and relaxing color; just throwing an idea here, but it could maybe be due to a similar evolutionary process, whereby plains (where a lot of the sky can be seen) are safer to humanoids than forests or jungles.

As for food, we have documented examples that some substances taste differently for different people, although they still fall into categories of sort (e.g. "citrusy" vs "soapy" for cilantro). I'd think there's likely more variability here.

Just my 2 cents!

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by BionicGecko

As for food, we have documented examples that some substances taste differently for different people, although they still fall into categories of sort (e.g. "citrusy" vs "soapy" for cilantro). I'd think there's likely more variability here.

Just my 2 cents!

I enjoy the bitter/sweet/cinnamon taste of cheap cinnamon hearts but abhor the bitter/sweet taste that both Doctor Pepper and Smarties have. As far as I'm concerned, Doctor Pepper has the distinct taste of the cough syrup my parents used to buy when I was a child.

It took an embarrassing amount of time to realize that most people can not taste the bitterness of the above items (or that of a number of cheap artificially colored red, pink, purple or brown sweets)

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by ekbell

I enjoy the bitter/sweet/cinnamon taste of cheap cinnamon hearts but abhor the bitter/sweet taste that both Doctor Pepper and Smarties have. As far as I'm concerned, Doctor Pepper has the distinct taste of the cough syrup my parents used to buy when I was a child.

It took an embarrassing amount of time to realize that most people can not taste the bitterness of the above items (or that of a number of cheap artificially colored red, pink, purple or brown sweets)

You're a super-taster? Or is it hyper-taster? When I tested for that I tasted nothing.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by ekbell

It took an embarrassing amount of time to realize that most people can not taste the bitterness of the above items (or that of a number of cheap artificially colored red, pink, purple or brown sweets)

I'm disappointed because I love bitter: Campari, tonic water, aspirins, rapini...
I've never found Dr. Pepper to be bitter. It's my favorite soda. I probably drink one a year. Ok, I'm not a big soda fan.

[gmw]

I've never tasted Dr. Pepper, but I have become curious about it since reading an essay by John Green in which he says...

It’s the only category of soda not named for what it tastes like, which to my mind is precisely why Dr Pepper marks such an interesting and important moment in human history. It was an artificial drink that didn’t taste like anything. It wasn’t like an orange but better, or like a lime but sweet. In an interview, Charles Alderton once said that he wanted to create a soda that tasted like the soda fountain in Waco smelled—all those artificial flavors swirling together in the air. Dr Pepper is, in its very conception, unnatural. The creation of a chemist.

-- The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, 2021

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

You're a super-taster? Or is it hyper-taster? When I tested for that I tasted nothing.

As far as I can tell I don't taste bitter more acutely but rather have the ability to taste a bitter that most can't. My amateur google-fu indicates that there is a wide variability in 'bitter taste receptor genes'.