There's a word for this, but I don't know what it is

I can’t visualize things very well.

Let’s say that I’m sewing, and I’m about to put a sleeve on a shirt. Sleeves are really hard anyway, but they’re harder for me because I have trouble remembering which way it should be pinned on. I can’t “see” how it’s going to look until I actually do it, so sometimes I end up with a sleeve that’s wrong side out.

That’s just one example, and probably a bad one.

Some people can “see” things before they’re made, and they automatically know which way something should be arranged in order to get the right result. I can’t see it in my head until I actually see it in front of me.

Is there a word for this?

Spacial reasoning?

Ugh, spatial.

I’ve heard it called spatial ability and spatial intelligence.

At the risk of hijacking the thread, is there a word for “not being able to remember the word for something?”

Which reminds me of Stephen Wright’s question – why is there no synonym for “thesaurus”?

I believe it would simply be the term “visualization”.

The Master did a column on this one, with much input from the Teeming Millions.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a961213.html

Anomia. But it may only apply to specific types of words.

It is spatial reasoning. Here is more about it from here:

“Spatial abilities are the perceptual and cognitive abilities that enable a person to deal with spatial relations, in other words the visualization and orientation of objects in space. Put simply spatial skills assess your ability to manipulate 3D objects by flipping and rotating them. Spatial intelligence questions test raw intelligence without the influence of prior knowledge and as such performance on this scale is indicative of general intelligence. At a first glance, such questions may appear daunting but the trick is not to give up too quickly. Often a second look at the problem will reveal a different approach, and a solution will appear because the brain has been given the opportunity to process information further.”

I’ve also seen these tests presented as an irregular box with some sides shaded and you have to pick from various patterns to find the one that would fold up into the example box.