Is audiation universal, like the natural human ability to imagine and manipulate and rotate complex 3D scenes in the mind? I'm thinking it is, because many people say "I can imagine that sentence being read in so-and-so's voice".
I think you might be doing what he says he's doing, ideation happens in the minds eye just like recalling an image. If I picture a cat, I can flip the cat around in my head, or I can put the cat in an alleyway and I picture the whole scene.
I imagine it's "universal" in the sense that it's part of most people's capabilities, but there are disorders that could affect it. One is called Amusia, which is a disorder affecting the ability to perceive music and difficulty remembering music.
There are people who can't imagine pictures in their head, such as your example manipulating 3D scenes in your mind. They couldn't do that. That's known as aphantasia. There are also people without an inner-monologue, so they don't think inside their head. I couldn't find the name of that.
It's an alien world to think of any of those possibilities, I guess you would work around it. I knew a graphic designer with aphantasia, and she was just as capable as the others!
My mental imaging was always weak, and it always seemed that 'manipulating 3D scenes' was beyond me. Then I discovered otherwise ... but only after ingesting a certain substance forbidden to all but certain religions. Gotta speculate that many of us have the capacity but just need to get a handle on it.
There are many remarkable (probably widespread) mental phenomena that are completely overlooked/unvalued (at least by most materialist cultures). Partly because they don't have names that are ever mentioned. 'Qualia','synesthesia' (which I had when young and sadly ... lost? before I ever knew the idea). 'Audiation' ... the term's entirely new to me ( I began playing when I was 5) and (says WP) was not even coined until 1975. What else goes nameless, unseen, unheard?
How many kids have such abilities that are completely-overlooked, like the kid some writer (was it Huxley)? saw scratching an advanced math proof in the sand? How was it that Mozart could 'write entire works in his head'? Probably because as a prodigy he was taught the value of such skills. We can only speculate about all the horsepower going to waste - while young minds are stuffed with sugar and advertisements.
