Question for NTs about how you think

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[quote]
fraac wrote:
This forum has plenty of NTs, and nonautistic forums would be freaked out by even asking the questions.
[quote]

I have to disagree with you. This forum is predominately visited by ASDs, suspect/denial ASDs or their families. n/ts don't spend their Sunday afternoons posting on ASD forums.

@verdandi I understand what they mean, you must have language in order to think beyond your most basic needs. Everyone who has responded to this thread has the ability to think in words, there appear to be some differences in how we perceive this thinking, but we all have this in common.

It seems to me that how we think isn't as important as how our thinking and neurology contribute to the outcomes in our decisions or behaviour. If these modes of thinking could be easily described and attributed to certain disorders, then that would form the basis of any diagnostic tests rather than focusing on behaviours.

Jason

The problem with diagnosis based on thought pattern is that people need to describe their own, which may be extremely difficult for some people, and different people may describe the same thought pattern completely differently.

My thoughts can be translated into words to communicate with, but there is a translation layer there between how I process them and how I communicate them. My thinking is not in words.

I'd ask people who I know responses, but most people I know are rather towards the spectrum even if they're not on it.

A couple of people have said it is the same voice. I don't think it is, at least not for me. I have both, anxiety and depression, and for me they are fundamentally different. I experience anxiety as the physical symptoms/sensations Verdandi and others have described, with fear the accompanying emotion. The inner voice is there but it's not telling me things. If anything, the inner voice is telling me, sh**, here comes an anxiety wave. Now that I have learned to recognise it that is, had it for years and thought this how everybody feels when they've got a lot going on!



My depression is not severe, so I have never had intrusive thought of the kind that tell a person they are worthless etc. what I have had is a sort of intrusive memory loop where memories of negative experiences churn around in my head unbidden, until I become aware of them and make a conscious effort to think of something else.

The inner voice was if anything too quiet during my depression before I got treatment, the inside of my head seemed filled with grey cotton wool and I experienced an inability to think full stop, my concentration span was down to a few seconds at most.



For me the feeling is one of fear and of an inabilty to cope.

To me it explains A LOT about how NTs move around their worlds. And you have the opposite problem! When the stuff I'm thinking of isn't commonly known I make up my own words by analogy; I figure that so long as a model is consistent it should be understandable. It works for me anyway, but maybe few people would understand me.

I don't agree with this. If I thought in words I wouldn't need to translate my thoughts into words in order to speak or write (which is the only way I can "think in words,"* by using external means of producing language, due to my relative lack of an inner voice).

* And I am not sure this phrase is entirely accurate, as I am translating my thoughts and transcribing or speaking them, so the thought has technically already happened before it ever became language.

Last edited by Verdandi on 29 Jan 2012, 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't invent many words.

Could you clarify the "opposite problem" statement?

Oh yes they do! (well, weird ones anyway).

V, I assumed you would have profound executive dysfunction but understand most things. Do you only believe you understand things once you have the words for them - or are the words just for explaining? Like a feedback process for understanding: concepts -> words -> concepts. That's how I work. I certainly don't do the autistic visualising the entire solution in one go thing; it takes me a few moves to get there and the intermediate steps are all analogies. I understand most things via television tropes.

It was creating and naming my own models that made me realise that Jesus and Buddha were autistic: our models were isomorphic, just with different words.

I do have a lot of the executive dysfunction. I'm not even brilliant at my favorite hobbies. The words are for explaining, and understanding can come prior. If I don't have language for it, I can't explain it, or at least can make an at best clumsy attempt at explaining it.

I don't know how many things I understand. A lot of more abstract things (like philosophy) can be downright confusing, and if I work out a framework in which to deal with it, I might lose it after I'm done and need to repeat the process to understand it again. Not just philosophy, but that's my best example right now.

I have an inner dialog but I also have non-verbal intuitions that I have difficulty articulating to others. When I'm thinking about a math or physics problem I explore it visually first and then use my inner dialog to check for logical consistency. Same goes for any kind of heavy thinking on an issue. I don't necessarily come to the solution using verbal thinking. Verbal thinking is used more as a check to fill in any logical gaps and make sure my reasoning is air-tight.

Words can also be used as a kind of index or look-up table for organizing and keeping things straight in my head. For instance, I might repeat a certain phrase a bunch of times in my head in order to keep something in my memory for later use. I've sometimes run into the problem where I don't know the proper word to use to describe/encapsulate an idea I've been thinking about. Then I have to improvise and use my own word that may or may not be correct usage or even make sense to an outside listener.

I really don't think verbal thinking is my primary mode of problem solving. Non-verbal intuition and pictures/videos come first. Language just helps me check the logic and cement everything together. Then I sometimes use words as mnemonics to keep my thoughts organized. My heavy thinking is mostly non-verbal and internal monologue is used mainly for memory and book-keeping, and sometimes to check my logic.

That is not remotely true. How many NTs are you sampling? Give me a number. Don't build your universal model from two or three views from NTs, its statistically flawed. You say you want to understand so work harder.

I'm sampling as many as answer. You're one! Do you have a running commentary inner voice? What are your thoughts on this?

Oh you replied to my pm. Can I post that? It's useful. (Short answer: yes, constant inner voice.)

What I find interesting is the way the 'inner voice' is referred to by different people. Autistics using an inner voice seem to mean something different than NTs. I definitely have one but the locus of control seems different. Mine certainly doesn't chunner away while I'm listening to people - I couldn't attend to both. That last sentence would confuse someone for whom the voice is them.

Let's make some testable predictions. My first thoughts are gorilla in the room stuff, like introducing something inexplicable into an NT's field of vision and maybe it would be invisible? What else?

It is possible to understand concepts without attaching words to it. My understanding of academics is sometimes more intuitive, meaning that I seem to have an understanding of complex relationships and how they all interact without needing to break it down into words of explanation for myself. I can just see the relationships and am aware of them. I do often have to break it down into words in order to explain it other people though. Sometimes this can result in a rambling discourse that digresses all over the place whilst I attempt to tie it all up and put it into words in a way that other people will understand..and even then, when I was at University the last time, I used to end up with blank faces staring at me and the response "I don't see how it all relates'.

Mind you, even after I had put it into words in a concise way I could still experience the same. I once gave a marked essay to a group I was working with because it explained some points I was trying to make. The essay was marked with an A grade and the tutor who marked it had said it was "beautifully written and very well argued". I was still met with blank faces and the "we don't see how this stuff all relates" by the group I gave it to though...

At that point I felt like smacking my head on the desk, but that would have hurt, so I didn't.

I have a terrible time getting people to understand me (unless they have a PHd apparently) most of the time and that is another reason that I find socialising to be highly frustrating. It's really hard to have a good discussion when people cannot seem to understand what you are talking about

In regards to my inner voice I can apparently multi-task because mine is babbling away me whilst people are talking to me at the same time, so I have to process both simultaneously. When I am only thinking about casual things I don't mind having to do that but if I am pondering academics or I am working I really hate people disrupting my thoughts with off topic banter. Hence I prefer to work alone rather than in groups where people talk incessantly.

Last edited by bumble on 29 Jan 2012, 1:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

That Gorilla was efficaciously eliminated for an autistic marker via a thread here, (unless those that missed' were miss DX'd).

How about social cognition? As where is your thought or attention during social intercourse. Is it on details without a context in real time? In otherwords 'no feeling or sense of the matter' in a realtime dialogue, as a lack in feel or intuition before it is all said? Is there this sense or (prior) understanding when the scope shifts to non Theory of Mind topics?

In short, is there a realtime lack of trajectory sense in ToM communication vs. non ToM communication stuff?