Do Aspie artists possess advanced TOM?

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Or put another way, I am curious as to weather or not the right brained dominant aspie is more naturally equipped than the left brained dominant aspie in understanding facial expressions and emotions?

If makes sense to me that the above theory is correct, as most of the philosophical and artistic people I know in the spectrum seem more equipped to attune themselves as well as to convey the emotions.

I don't know but usually I have no problem understanding what people are feeling (if not always why they are feeling it). But I can't express my own emotions at all. People think I'm angry when I'm not, upset when I'm not, happy when I'm not. I am not an artistic person particularly but I have none of the analytical talent left brain dominance is supposed to give you. Make of that what you can!

I am a right-brain-dominant aspie-ish person and I have somewhat lousy theory of mind. There are all kindsa things i have trouble with..I sincerely do not understand how people are feeling unless it is blatantly obvious. I also have trouble processing and understanding my own emotions....all kinda stuff..

Can remember most images I have seen. Often change them in dreaming, and think I've seen/remembered something else. Most weird. Can read faces really well. Still haven't a clue what the people behind the mask actually want/mean most of time. A good portion of their behavior doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Loose keys and forget to do other things.

many people say Van Gough was on the spectrum,
and this got me thinking that if he was, he must
have had an incredable insight into human
emotions in order to convey such profound
expression of human suffering and intensity

Have been painting bloody sunflowers ( design stuff) all week, can't get anywhere near the man. Van G. seemed to irridate his paints with emotion so they became almost living stuff. He painted feelings into his subjects. If you study some of his SF's they are almost photographic in detail but they are still "alive" in a way a lot of art is not.

Oldest woman in France ( Don't know if she is dead now) worked in offie where VG used to buy booze. Said he was bad tempered, and drunk sometimes, but then she didn't know what limits he was pushing himself through.

Pity (real) the high empathy Aspie who finds no outlet.

yeah, I understand where you are coming from memesplice.

not really being able to find the right outlet can be a big frustration at times, and even if i do find one, it only works temporarily.

It seems fairly evident that Van Gogh had enough of his own suffering to draw on without needing to understand anyone else's. That doesn't mean to say that he didn't understand other's suffering. I have no idea. Having no or limited TOM does not necessarily preclude feeling or understanding suffering/emotions.

Last edited by Moog on 02 Apr 2010, 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Gets even worse when NT's start to do silly money-dance when wanting buy stuff- Advice do not do commissions - you need to be fricking telepath to figure out what they are after. Do your own stuff and they can take it or leave it.

OK- Can artist be used in totemic way to explain/relate to group of like minded individuals their individual theory of mind?

Hmm interesting question.

Thinking ,slightly lateral, of Picasso- photograph of him ( showing big testicals) during war. Was used as anti-Nazi propaganda . P. picked up this attribution of hyper masculine and ran with it, myth and man entangled, like one of his more famous paintings.

Does VG stand as totemic of Aspie empaths in similar way?- to some extent, although I (presume to doubt) he himself would be concerned about anything other than getting that thick beautiful texture into a sunflower petal, and what an irritation to have to stop doing that and wander out to buy booze + food, embarassingly smelly, covered in yellow and cyan and make talk to that young
girl in shop.

the entire right brain/left brain dichotomy is something of a neuroscientific exagerration.
It's mostly true in males, and then just mostly in right handed males.

I don't think so. I wrote prolofically growing up to process. Both poetry and prose. Puting hard to understand feelings into words was an exercise...kind of therapy. Understanding human, what was happening around me and how I felt. I'm actually left hand dominant.

My daughter is a very creative as...artistic, project oriented. She stinks at facial expressions and doesn't understand any but the most blatant emotions. I think Van gogh is a very bad example as you read the biographies you realize just how hampered he was in his life by his own lack of ability to process emotions. Painting was his safe place....where he could process. Which is why you see so much raw emotion in his work. IMO.

The whole left-right brain dichotomy is way overstated, and there's little evidence to suggest that one side of the brain dominates one's personality. There's a lot more to it than that.

Van Gogh was more likely schizophrenic and depressed. I can explain why.
The relationship between schizophrenia and autism is interesting. Schizophrenics do have autistic symptoms, such as a tendency to be perceptually isolated and socially inept. However the similarities are very few when you look at the whole picture of how each affects someone's life.
A schizophrenic has what could be considered a poorly developed ego, which is just the process in the brain that analyzes and distinguishes "self" from "not self". This results in delusions and fantasies; the individual has a difficult time understanding the difference between that and reality. Schizophrenics also have poor self-control, depending on the severity of their symptoms.
There's usually nothing wrong with an autistic's cognitive abilities. Instead, we have processing issues that lead to difficulties with communication, perception and coping with emotions. Instead of a weak self-image, we have a good self-image with bad connections to the outside; with schizophrenia, you have good connections and a weak self-image.
I've known a few schizophrenics. When not medicated, they are highly irritable, suggestible, and unable to think rationally.

Van Gogh was highly irritable, emotional, and had wild fantasies. Also, he lived in a time where mental illness was still a taboo and not understood very well-- autism did not even exist yet. As a result, we may have been ostracized or had the wrong medical attention that could have caused more problems.
His artwork is expressive, yet highly compulsive; he fixated on the eyes and the female genitalia, and may have even had delusions where he saw parallels between them.

Definatly not. I've learned to fake things over the years, but inside I don't really understand what is going on with other people and I don't care.

Left handed and left-brain dominant, but also artistic. I'm good at understanding my own feelings, and the feelings of others, but can't express them (or atleast don't want to). As many aspies I've learned how to fake certain emotions, and to read certain facial expressions, except for sad expressions as sadness is a feeling which I fear more than fear itself. I go along with others, and rarely get into any sorts of arguments - even though being diplomatic comes with a price. Direct compliments are something which I'm really bad at, and I have to be subtle about it. Giving compliments on someones looks is something I'm not able to, and I find such flattery pointless. I'm not very comforting either, and have to force myself into making eye contact. As for the right vs. left brain theory, I'd say artistic people are more in contact with their emotions, while they may still fall short when it comes describing them with words. Though I¨have artistic skills, they are surpressed by my analytical way of thinking, and so are my feelings. I treat them like strings of encrypted information , which needs to be broken down in smaller pieces in order for me to decrypt them, and thus understand their true nature.