Animals & Aphantasia
Sept 30, 2020 18:32:14 GMT -6
Post by penpen on Sept 30, 2020 18:32:14 GMT -6
It's been a long time, and I'm pretty sure I dropped off LF some time around or shortly after 2013, around when I started Undergrad probably... So who am I now?
For one thing, I have a fully connected prefrontal cortex now, so that's neat. To all who knew me before, I'm Sorry.
So who am I now? I don't really think of myself as a 'writer' any more since it's no longer my primary motivation and hobby, although I will write quite a bit. I did my undergrad as a double major in Psychology & Neuroscience, and then an honours degree in Health Science (Physiology). Currently, I'm a PhD candidate in my final year (Final 8 months!), specifically studying target tracking and attention in the Dragonfly Visual system by recording from their neurons- There is a lot to unpack there, so maybe I'll leave it for another post. As far as the introduction goes, i'm interested in Behavioural Biology, Neuroscience, Cognition, & Ecology - mostly of animals. I'm very interested in looking at the cool things animals do, and trying to understand how (In a biological/sensory/information processing sense) and why (in an evolutionary and intentionality) sense they do them. Although Dragonflies are the focus of my front line experimental research, my interests certainly are not limited to them. If you'd ever like to spitball a fantasy creatures sensory systems/behaviour/ecology feel free to hit me up, since that's a large part of what I do in my spare time anyway! A colleague of mine and I have deigned a D&D-like Pen & paper RPG system (Since we were satisfied with some of the mechanics/directions in Pathfinder, D&D, GURPS, ect) and I spend a lot of time thinking about creatures in the Bestiary and how they would actually work as animals - what would their evolutionary history be? their ecology? How would their sensory systems work? Even though a lot of this thought is 'behind the scenes' it ends up being represented in how we treat the creature and, for me at east, is an important step in making a consistent and believable world. I also do a lot of wildlife photography hikes on weekends, so i'm basically all animals, all the time...
I've also discovered i am Aphantasic, which is not-quite a medical condition characterised by a lack of visual sensory imagination. I'll likely make a post about in more detailed at some point because it's very relevant, but the basics are this: I have no sense of a 'minds eye' and lack the ability to visually imagine anything (objects, scenes, faces). I think this probably affects how i read and write, since i often get really bored by long-winded descriptive prose since it's a lot of information that doesn't add much for me. Now I realise that, for other people who can call up a 'visual image' via their imagination, an author describing the colours and shapes of a flower helps fill in that mental image. For me, its superfluous. Its a flower; i get it, unless the colour is plot relevant, I don't care. For me this was a fascinating discovery and I only really made it when it started to get discussed in the neuroscience literature. Aphantasia is the topic of one of my projects actually, since there is so little out there about it outside of the neuroscience literature I think there needs to be a bridge so general readers can learn and understand about it. As a Neuroscientist with Aphantasia, I feel like I can probably fill that gap quite well. But -- the PhD comes first.
I still write a bit of fiction now and then, mostly as a creative exercise to give myself something other than a PhD to do that is still intellectually demanding. There are several novels floating around that i work on here and there, mostly Fantasy/Sci-fi/both.
So, that's the new me! I don't really remember how it compares to the old me (Another part or Aphantasia). I'm very friendly so feel free to hit me up if you want to chat about animals, aphantasia, or neuroscience. I'm also very forgetful so don't take it personally if I don't reply.
For one thing, I have a fully connected prefrontal cortex now, so that's neat. To all who knew me before, I'm Sorry.
So who am I now? I don't really think of myself as a 'writer' any more since it's no longer my primary motivation and hobby, although I will write quite a bit. I did my undergrad as a double major in Psychology & Neuroscience, and then an honours degree in Health Science (Physiology). Currently, I'm a PhD candidate in my final year (Final 8 months!), specifically studying target tracking and attention in the Dragonfly Visual system by recording from their neurons- There is a lot to unpack there, so maybe I'll leave it for another post. As far as the introduction goes, i'm interested in Behavioural Biology, Neuroscience, Cognition, & Ecology - mostly of animals. I'm very interested in looking at the cool things animals do, and trying to understand how (In a biological/sensory/information processing sense) and why (in an evolutionary and intentionality) sense they do them. Although Dragonflies are the focus of my front line experimental research, my interests certainly are not limited to them. If you'd ever like to spitball a fantasy creatures sensory systems/behaviour/ecology feel free to hit me up, since that's a large part of what I do in my spare time anyway! A colleague of mine and I have deigned a D&D-like Pen & paper RPG system (Since we were satisfied with some of the mechanics/directions in Pathfinder, D&D, GURPS, ect) and I spend a lot of time thinking about creatures in the Bestiary and how they would actually work as animals - what would their evolutionary history be? their ecology? How would their sensory systems work? Even though a lot of this thought is 'behind the scenes' it ends up being represented in how we treat the creature and, for me at east, is an important step in making a consistent and believable world. I also do a lot of wildlife photography hikes on weekends, so i'm basically all animals, all the time...
I've also discovered i am Aphantasic, which is not-quite a medical condition characterised by a lack of visual sensory imagination. I'll likely make a post about in more detailed at some point because it's very relevant, but the basics are this: I have no sense of a 'minds eye' and lack the ability to visually imagine anything (objects, scenes, faces). I think this probably affects how i read and write, since i often get really bored by long-winded descriptive prose since it's a lot of information that doesn't add much for me. Now I realise that, for other people who can call up a 'visual image' via their imagination, an author describing the colours and shapes of a flower helps fill in that mental image. For me, its superfluous. Its a flower; i get it, unless the colour is plot relevant, I don't care. For me this was a fascinating discovery and I only really made it when it started to get discussed in the neuroscience literature. Aphantasia is the topic of one of my projects actually, since there is so little out there about it outside of the neuroscience literature I think there needs to be a bridge so general readers can learn and understand about it. As a Neuroscientist with Aphantasia, I feel like I can probably fill that gap quite well. But -- the PhD comes first.
I still write a bit of fiction now and then, mostly as a creative exercise to give myself something other than a PhD to do that is still intellectually demanding. There are several novels floating around that i work on here and there, mostly Fantasy/Sci-fi/both.
So, that's the new me! I don't really remember how it compares to the old me (Another part or Aphantasia). I'm very friendly so feel free to hit me up if you want to chat about animals, aphantasia, or neuroscience. I'm also very forgetful so don't take it personally if I don't reply.
You add them to your profile as you do them around the forum.
