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A hypothesis that those on spectrum are not socially blind

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sapientdevice
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22 Mar 2011, 6:24 am

I can relate to the "not seeing the point" and rationalizing thing. When I was a child my teachers always said I was very bright but that I lacked motivation. I think I felt like everything seemed so competitive and I had a feeling that it would always be like running a race you'd never complete or win. I remember wondering when the topic came came up what I was supposed to be motivated towards. I already always tried to get the best grades I could so I was very confused about what more they wanted from me.

All my life I have failed to embody this competitive spirit that I feel rules the day. Most things look like they will result in a net loss from where I'm at.

Yensid
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22 Mar 2011, 8:45 am

Bethie wrote:

Right. But that purpose isn't necessarily one that all people will find rational.

I think that this is one of the basic differences between my mind and the mind of the "average" individual. In many cases, the purpose of a custom is simply to fit in with everybody else or to fit in with a particular social group. There is no deeper purpose. This is particularly true with customs involving clothing. Such things are pretty much incomprehensible to me, and it is really difficult for me to do them correctly.

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anbuend
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23 Mar 2011, 1:07 am

I guess I should also note a couple of things about my abilities:

1. Even when I'm able to instinctively process emotion from others, emotion (whether something simple, or something slightly more complex than just emotion) is nearly all I get. I don't get all the complex social codes that go along with them. Or any other information.

2. When I'm actually putting myself into the mechanics of an interaction, I have enough trouble multitasking that I drop some of my awareness of emotion and stuff.

3. Much like #2, dealing with language at the same time makes it incredibly hard to pick up anything but the language. (Sort of a temporary forfeiting when things like tha happen.

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Apple_in_my_Eye
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23 Mar 2011, 8:14 am

katzefrau wrote:

purchase wrote:

I am in agreement with that hypothesis. I at least feel like I see every unintended facial movement and so on that other people make, and they are not meant by the wearer of these expressions to signify anything but they snuck through while the person was making a deliberate expression with common social currency. If that makes any sense. And I get stuck on these base-level flashes of their true feelings and this is the level at which one human being would be afraid of another human being because they are signifiers that one person might get violent with another, although this rarely happens in modern society.

that makes absolute sense. i know exactly what you mean.

but i don't understand the "common currency." it seems a put on and i am always imagining people are patronizing each other. i cannot make sense of people's immediate communication at all. i am always being left behind in conversation. i am always trying different metaphors for this and i can't seem to properly explain it. something like x-ray vision while being blind. i subscribe to both the intense world theory and the idea that i cannot read social cues. i am both completely overwhelmed and completely lost. i spent my whole life trying to understand other people - both "why do they act this way? - what does it mean?" and "why don't they understand this on this other level?" and would talk about it all the time. it probably exasperated everyone. no one ever understood what i was on about. it never occurred to me that anyone could interact without constant analysis and make sense of each other. i thought conversation was unnatural and everyone was equally fearful of interaction but out of embarrassment did not talk about it.

That also makes sense to me -- it seems like people have different 'layers' of signals that they give off. On top is the "stage whisper" level, where the person is consciously and deliberately trying to put across a certain idea/image/impression. And underneath that are the little movements, subtle vocal qualities, and so on that are unconscious reflections of what is really going on inside of the person.

But, like Anbuend mentioned, if I have to be participating in a conversation with the person, then I'm screwed. It's too much mental activity to be able to sense that subtle stuff at the same time. And, I tend to miss or not register the "stage whisper" level, or get confused when that level and the unconscious one are opposite each other, even if not overwhelmed with having to talk/listen.

There seems to be way more going on than simply not reading non-verbal signals. It's more like reading one level much less, and another level much more, than normal.

Kon
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23 Mar 2011, 10:16 am

It's interesting how there seems to be this dichotomy. Either:

1. socially blind or
2. social information is overwhelming.

Maybe if one is more mildly affected social information becomes overwhelming/confusing but if social information is too overwhelming it kinda becomes just noise=socially blind?

Bombaloo
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23 Mar 2011, 12:42 pm

Kon wrote:

I think the Markram's Intense World Theory accounts for both of these. It may seem like a dichotomy because the end result is exhibited in different ways. Under the Intense World Thoery, social blindness would be the result of being overwhelmed by the amount of information a person perceives from the time they were infnats. The brain develops aversions to things it cannot handle possibly resulting in social blindess. Others may not have as great of a reaction to the overwhelming amount of information and still as adults be able to perceive the social information. Their brains do not have to filter it all out in order to function. As others have posted on this thread and as the Markram's theory holds, some autistic people retain the ability to read social cues it is just exhausting and stressful to carry on with it for very long in social situations.

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23 Mar 2011, 1:27 pm

Bethie wrote:

I was reading an article the other day by a special education counselor who works with many Autistic children,
many of them high-functioning,
and she raised an important point:

Are (all) Aspies really disabled when it comes to understanding and mimicking NT customs,
or do they understand them, and simply do not see the point?

I know that for me, EVERYTHING has to be something I can understand as rational/logical-
I have an EXTREMELY difficult time doing *anything* that I simply don't see the point in,
and as someone who's spent two decades observing the behavior of NT peers,
many of their practices fall under that category.

I'll try to find that article.

:!:

EDIT: Bwahaha!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pos ... ty-imitate

"I started to wonder if this child, and perhaps other children with Autism, really don't know how to imitate others' actions, or if they just don't understand the point of it. This child was able to imitate my actions perfectly when it mattered to him (playing with really fun toys), but did not do so without a lot of help when we were doing actions that were not so meaningful to him. If you think about it, what exactly is the point of imitating someone clapping their hands while just sitting at the table, other than to get your snack reward?"

I LOVE this quote from this article "Well, I guess that shows you need to be careful who you imitate...they might not be too smart." This seems to sum up how my son feels about things!
Thanks for sharing that - this writer poses some really good questions that need to be explored.

Kon
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23 Mar 2011, 2:21 pm

Bombaloo wrote:

I think his theory is also good for providing support to the view that introversion might be on the lower end of the ASD spectrum. Because introverts also need time alone from social interaction not to be overwhelmed and also slow with social stuff and have many other "milder" symptoms of ASD as argued in the link below. The problem with this view is how extraverts fit into the scheme since some people with ASD appear extraverted. Maybe they're just unihibited introverts/ASDs?

http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0003090/Grime ... 005_MA.pdf

Bombaloo
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23 Mar 2011, 2:39 pm

Kon wrote:

I think the Markram's theory would say yes - or maybe more precisely, people with ASD who exhibit extroverted behaviors did not, for whatever reason, develop aversive reactions to all social situations. Or maybe another explanation would be that those particular individuals are just as affected but were able to adapt coping mechanisms. As you can probably tell, I'm really getting into the Markram's Intense World Theory. At least so far it seems to explain the spectrum part of the spectrum or why people can be given the same diagnosis but exhibit such a wide variety of behaviors. I also like one corollary of the theory which is that ALL autisitcs are extremely gifted possibly because of the unusual degree of interconnectedness in their brain structure. Unfortunately for some, the aversion to sensory input, due to the same interconnectedness, is so great that the world around them is too painful for them to interact with it.

Scanner
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23 Mar 2011, 2:41 pm

Blind till 20.

katzefrau
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08 Apr 2011, 1:55 am

Apple_in_my_Eye wrote:

There seems to be way more going on than simply not reading non-verbal signals. It's more like reading one level much less, and another level much more, than normal.

yes.

less where more is required. more where less is required.

appropriate = never.

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katzefrau
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08 Apr 2011, 1:58 am

sapientdevice wrote:

I think I felt like everything seemed so competitive and I had a feeling that it would always be like running a race you'd never complete or win.

i've always felt competition was worthless. in fact competitiveness is a quality i detest in other people. and heirarchy / rank.

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Joe90
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06 May 2011, 11:28 am

I am not socially blind at all. I just seem to lack confidence in expressing the social knowledge that I know of. If I'm having a conversation with an NT, I know all the exact right questions to ask at the exact right times, but I seem to lack confidence in asking the questions, through fear of the other person interrupting me, or not listening to me properly, making me feel stupid or awkward afterwards.

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SuperTrouper
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06 May 2011, 5:06 pm

emuman100 wrote:

I feel that autistics are more sensitive to what is going on. I never believed for second that I was unempathetic when I read about AS first learning I had it. I even asked my mother if I seemed unempathetic when I was younger and she said no. The psychologist I previously went to even said he never believed people on the spectrum lacked empathy, but were more in tune to it than neurotypicals. Anyone who says that autistics lack empathy is full of it.

Please do speak for yourself, but don't speak for "autistics" as a whole on this one... I severely lack empathy. I have learned to express it and say the right words on rare occasions, but if you smack your face and cry? I might hold my ears or leave because crying hurts my ears, or I might think of something funny and laugh... you get the idea. Only a small chance that I'll remember and get it together to ask if you're okay, and even then, the most likely words to come out would be, "How do I fix it?" because I want the loudness to stop.

littlelily613
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06 May 2011, 9:43 pm

I am severe HFA, and I do see myself as socially blind in a sense. I do not see myself as emotionless, but I also don't empathize with people the way others do. That doesn't mean that I see horrible things on the news, and think "who cares?" I can sympathize, I just can't empathize. Also, I have no idea how to act in a social situation. I have my guesses, of course, but my guesses are usually wrong. I would definitely say I am socially blind.

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