I am a person self-diagnosed with aphantasia. I can for example think of a cube that is placed in front of me. I can spin it on an axis and have a rough idea of where the rotated edges should be. I wouldn't be able to draw it, though, because I would just be guessing about the proportions, or reverting to tricks to draw perspective. Because I don't see the cube in any way. It's completely invisible. It's just an idea of what the cube's position might be in the space directly in front of me.
On the other hand, I can see hypnagogic images directly before falling asleep. These have fidelity, color, detail, look real, and are definitely visual. I also lucid dream occasionally, and the amount of visual detail there is more than I see in real life because of bad eyesight.
The cube I'm "picturing" in front of me, though, has no visual component at all.
I also remember reading about how in some study they watched the brain activity of people with normal visualization capabilities where the visual components of the brain lit up when they were visualizing but did not light up for people with aphantasia when they were visualizing (or trying to).
If people really have no visual component at all when they picture a cube in front of them, then I would agree that aphantasia is not a thing. But people I talk to go on and on about the level of detail they see and what they use visualization for without even consciously thinking about it.
On the other hand, I can see hypnagogic images directly before falling asleep. These have fidelity, color, detail, look real, and are definitely visual. I also lucid dream occasionally, and the amount of visual detail there is more than I see in real life because of bad eyesight.
The cube I'm "picturing" in front of me, though, has no visual component at all.
I also remember reading about how in some study they watched the brain activity of people with normal visualization capabilities where the visual components of the brain lit up when they were visualizing but did not light up for people with aphantasia when they were visualizing (or trying to).
If people really have no visual component at all when they picture a cube in front of them, then I would agree that aphantasia is not a thing. But people I talk to go on and on about the level of detail they see and what they use visualization for without even consciously thinking about it.