That could be the case to a degree -- it's likely very hard to rule out simple miscommunication in general as a part of the equation here. But I have a friend who administered this test (to be spoken to its subject):
Close your eyes. Imagine a ball resting on a table. The ball begins to roll, quicker now, and it goes over the edge of the table. It bounces, once, twice, three times, and rolls along the floor, then comes to a stop again.
What color was the ball?
Did you have to make that detail up just now when I asked you, or was that what you saw?
This last question is the decider: a visual detail like that is very difficult to omit while _picturing_ the situation, but is very easy to leave out if your brain doesn't work that way. If you had to choose a color at the end, you may have the true "no picture at all" form of aphantasia, as opposed to just failing to understand that other people don't see a real, solid image.
I just tried this - even after reading your comment - and my ball was more of an empty space with no color, if that makes sense. So I can see how someone when picturing the scene can still “see” a ball and “see” it rolling, falling, and bouncing but since the prompt never asked about color they simply didn’t choose one and focused on the shape itself.
Exactly. I was more focused on visualizing accurate physics about the object. In that sense it was "vivid". Color simply didn't factor in since it wasn't in the prompt. I can, at this moment visualize complex scenes with color without much issue. Especially after looking up aphantasia more closely, I'm highly skeptical of this test. With that said, I do think I tend to think _without_ color for practical purposes--most of the time I'm just interested in the kinetics of things I'm working through. Otherwise I'm very apt to feel like things have colors about them (my daughter, for instance, has a burnt orange personality; "cosmic" is a yellow word; serene is blue; 118 is red)--so it's not simply having a propensity for not thinking or, more importantly, _feeling_ in color.
Close your eyes. Imagine a ball resting on a table. The ball begins to roll, quicker now, and it goes over the edge of the table. It bounces, once, twice, three times, and rolls along the floor, then comes to a stop again.
What color was the ball?
Did you have to make that detail up just now when I asked you, or was that what you saw?
This last question is the decider: a visual detail like that is very difficult to omit while _picturing_ the situation, but is very easy to leave out if your brain doesn't work that way. If you had to choose a color at the end, you may have the true "no picture at all" form of aphantasia, as opposed to just failing to understand that other people don't see a real, solid image.