I was always confused when someone told me to "visualize" something. The only time it ever works is if I'm helping someone over the phone and need to walk them through steps. At that point, I seem to be able to pull up images of what they're seeing and can walk them through it. (usually computer screens) Unfortunately, this seems to be almost purely conceptual, I don't actually "see a picture" of anything in my head, ever.
And if someone asks me to try to picture something I haven't seen before, I can't just "imagine it" into my head.
On the other hand, I have a very strong "internal dialog" and always "think with my voice". I don't have anything even remotely approaching a "photographic memory", but learned very early on to spell words by "remembering hearing someone spell them out aloud" and literally writing down the letters as I hear them being read back to me in my head. I've never ran into anyone else that experiences this though.
On the plus side, those "I before E, except after C" sort of memory tricks work extremely well for me. As long as I never hear it wrong, even once. Or else I'm doomed to never forget it wrong, and then I have to keep track of which was the "right way".