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ASgirl
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18 Mar 2010, 10:20 am

I gather that some people with Asperger's can be quite animated when they are talking about things that they are passionate about and the monotone thing only kicks in when they are bored.



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18 Mar 2010, 12:17 pm

My vet always explains stuff to me in a slow monotone when I take my cat to him. ;)

I'd say it's actually a good thing if your voice is on the 'too flat' side. Monotone is easy to listen to. Heavily inflected voices are...I don't know..."overstimulating" to listen to. And not in a nice way, like heavy metal music is. :)


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MichelleRM78
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18 Mar 2010, 3:12 pm

This is just my POV (and I am NT), but a monotone comes across as phony and uninterested to me. My bf's son is very "robot like" with his monotone voice. When I first met him, and didn't know anything about AS, he came off as uncaring and phony. I didn't like it. That was my initial reaction. I suspect it comes across that way to other people as well.



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18 Mar 2010, 3:42 pm

PunkyKat wrote:
What's so wrong with a monotone voice anyway?


Not a fudgid thing! Like you, I'm tired of every job having "excellent cumminication skills" for a requirment as if it was the 'end all' to life on earth.



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18 Mar 2010, 3:43 pm

Uncaring I get, but phony makes no sense to me.
My phone plays off multiple tones when it rings.

And if it means fake it makes even less sense.
Because I talk in a usually monotone voice.
I just started thinking in a monotone voice.
I would rather think speaking with too much inflection comes off as fake.
But maybe this is because I think it is to make a lie more believable and lying disgusts me.



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18 Mar 2010, 4:02 pm

LiendaBalla wrote:
PunkyKat wrote:
What's so wrong with a monotone voice anyway?


Not a fudgid thing! Like you, I'm tired of every job having "excellent cumminication skills" for a requirment as if it was the 'end all' to life on earth.

They're a good way for me to practice my lying skills. I just lie on the acliplication about communication skills.



Last edited by PunkyKat on 18 Mar 2010, 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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18 Mar 2010, 4:05 pm

I don't have a monotone voice. Well, anymore.

I had one when I was younger, but I started treating speech as a sort of music, and copying the patterns I heard. So, when I speak, I copy patterns, but I'm not really always sure what the patterns mean, except where they connect with what I've learned about the connotations of words.

I'm not sure every aspie can learn that, though, because I am probably applying my knowledge of musical patterns to speech patterns and not everybody is good at music. Generally, I can pick up a tune on the first go round and make up a harmony for it on the second. When I hear a song for the first time, I can usually think of at least two or three possible patterns for the next dozen notes or so; and almost always the song will hit one of those patterns. It's when a song hits a pattern that I don't predict that I call it beautiful. I think I'm probably just doing the same thing with speech.


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Last edited by Callista on 18 Mar 2010, 4:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mechanicalgirl39
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18 Mar 2010, 4:06 pm

MichelleRM78 wrote:
This is just my POV (and I am NT), but a monotone comes across as phony and uninterested to me. My bf's son is very "robot like" with his monotone voice. When I first met him, and didn't know anything about AS, he came off as uncaring and phony. I didn't like it. That was my initial reaction. I suspect it comes across that way to other people as well.


That's exactly how I feel about very inflected voices. I hate that up-down, up-down cadence.


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18 Mar 2010, 4:08 pm

mechanicalgirl39 wrote:
MichelleRM78 wrote:
This is just my POV (and I am NT), but a monotone comes across as phony and uninterested to me. My bf's son is very "robot like" with his monotone voice. When I first met him, and didn't know anything about AS, he came off as uncaring and phony. I didn't like it. That was my initial reaction. I suspect it comes across that way to other people as well.


That's exactly how I feel about very inflected voices. I hate that up-down, up-down cadence.


Ditto! That's how I feel about the "peppy" zoo people. They seem so fake and seem like they are from the "Stepford Wives". And they say we are robotic like? Autistic/AS people sound so real because of their monotone voices.



Last edited by PunkyKat on 18 Mar 2010, 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Callista
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18 Mar 2010, 4:08 pm

I bet it sounds phony to Michelle because she can get the conversational subtext from inflections, so when she can't get that from a monotone, it's like somebody's left out half the message.


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18 Mar 2010, 4:11 pm

Callista wrote:
I bet it sounds phony to Michelle because she can get the conversational subtext from inflections, so when she can't get that from a monotone, it's like somebody's left out half the message.
Oh, haha.



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18 Mar 2010, 4:17 pm

I meant that to an NT, it is likely that subtext is half the message. They seem to get just as much meaning from it as from the words. Have you ever seen a couple of NT teenagers conduct a conversation with about ten words and a lot of expression and gesture? They can get a lot of really complex ideas across with hardly any complexity to their actual speech. The only conclusion seems to be that they're using subtext--gestures, pitch/inflection, tempo, and miscellaneous body language.


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18 Mar 2010, 4:46 pm

But I seriously doubt that it could leave out half the message.
Maybe it depends on the sentence.
Half the message in gestures is a lot.



MichelleRM78
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18 Mar 2010, 4:48 pm

Callista wrote:
I meant that to an NT, it is likely that subtext is half the message. They seem to get just as much meaning from it as from the words. Have you ever seen a couple of NT teenagers conduct a conversation with about ten words and a lot of expression and gesture? They can get a lot of really complex ideas across with hardly any complexity to their actual speech. The only conclusion seems to be that they're using subtext--gestures, pitch/inflection, tempo, and miscellaneous body language.


And I think that's a lot of it. Too much inflection definitely also comes across as phony, no doubt. But when there is no inflection, it almost seems like a script. I am certainly not saying this to insult-- but to share a perspective.



MichelleRM78
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18 Mar 2010, 4:54 pm

ursaminor wrote:
But I seriously doubt that it could leave out half the message.
Maybe it depends on the sentence.
Half the message in gestures is a lot.


Actually, it may be much more than half the message. If you google non-verbal communication, what words are actually said make up a VERY tiny percentage (around 7%) of what NT people perceive. The rest is style of speech and body language.



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18 Mar 2010, 5:39 pm

MichelleRM78 wrote:
This is just my POV (and I am NT), but a monotone comes across as phony and uninterested to me. My bf's son is very "robot like" with his monotone voice. When I first met him, and didn't know anything about AS, he came off as uncaring and phony. I didn't like it. That was my initial reaction. I suspect it comes across that way to other people as well.

At least you know now that monotone isn't phony and that some people can only speak like that.

I can add this to my list of when NT's have misunderstood autistics.
Aka. lack of eye contact....untrustworthiness.
Monotone......phony
Not speaking much.....not liking someone.

No wonder we get along so well. :roll:


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