I can visualize an apple pretty easily but if asked to think of an apple my brain presents a big map of apple-related concepts that may not have visualizations attached. Like I can think of an apple's color, texture, shape, flavor, temperature, an apple on a tree, links to memories of picking apples, foods that have apples in them, and so on.

I've always explained it as how words are representations of abstract concepts, and my brain presents the concepts directly rather than the word labels.

[–] abc@hexbear.net 5 points 2 years ago

You just described how I tend to think/visualize stuff by default in a much better way!! The 'map of related concepts' is absolutely me whenever I'm asked to think/visualize something out of the blue and probably why whenever I am asked "imagine X" I tend to immediately go 'okay, what am I imagining about X?' and consider that a 5 lol.