Are you aware of your lacking Theory of Mind?

Page 8 of 8 [ 126 posts ] Go to page Previous 1 ... 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

02 Jun 2013, 8:29 pm

One area in which autistics have more effortless automatic processing is in visual search, so I don't think it's conscious vs. automatic processing overall that distinguishes autistics and NTs. It's that NTs have the autosocial functions, but some non-social functions are easier for autistics. I am finishing my term paper on this topic right now.

_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!

marshall
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 14 Apr 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 10,752
Location: Turkey

02 Jun 2013, 8:39 pm

Anomiel wrote:

marshall wrote:

Anomiel wrote:

marshall wrote:

I don't see the point in continuing if you're getting angry at me. I'm not angry at you. Whatever. :shrug:

Irritated, not angry :shrug:

If you had said "YES! Learning is fun! But I hate institutions!" I would have shared a fun Ted-talk with you that talk about the evils of institutionalized learning (which I agree with). If you fail to see the part you played there maybe your cognitive empathy is not as good as you claim.
Anyway, yes, I agree. There's no point.

I think you're getting angry because you think I don't understand your point. You just want me to say you're right. I don't think our disagreement is as big as you think it is. I kept responding because you kept twisting what I said into something much more black-and-white than what I actually said.

Yeah, something like that, as you made no response whatsoever that you had understood my point. I made it black and white to easier point out where the difference was. :shrug:

Well, when you exaggerate something I say and argue against that, that's not a fair argument. You were attacking a straw man, not my real opinion. When you do that I feel the need to keep explaining.

Ettina
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Jan 2011
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,971

02 Jun 2013, 9:24 pm

Quote:

Personally, I believe that Central Coherence, Theory of Mind and Executive Functioning are closely related.

There's an important difference between two tasks involving the same skill or related skills.

For example, there's obviously a link between expressive and receptive language, but some people can have difficulty with one but not the other. So proving that one person has, for example, severe expressive language impairment does not tell you how good their receptive language might be.

Similarly, the fact that autistics have poor working memory does not indicate poor central coherence. In fact, I'm pretty sure Temple Grandin has decent central coherence. Otherwise, she couldn't imagine a big complex machine in her head and watch it work (which she says she can do).

Rocket123
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Dec 2012
Age: 62
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,188
Location: Lost in Space

02 Jun 2013, 9:25 pm

daydreamer84 wrote:

No it's not a casual relationship, seaturtleisland is right, short term working memory is an executive function -it's a part of executive functioning. I think a big part of the problem in real life situations is the multi-tasking and maybe processing too much sensory stimulation at once too but that's a kind of multi-tasking too , isn't it?

My bad. You are correct. Short term working memory is an executive function.

I am realizing that I am interjecting my own (non-proven) theories into this discussion. As I sense that there are lower-order executive functioning tasks (perhaps like working memory and maybe attention) and higher-order executive functioning tasks. And, like a networked computing system, these activities are “layered” on top of one another. So, the higher-order layer relies on the lower-order layer. And, defects occurring in the lower-order layer have a rippling effect on the higher-order layers.

Anyway, clearly I need to read more about this stuff and make certain I write more clearly/concisely

Rocket123
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Dec 2012
Age: 62
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,188
Location: Lost in Space

02 Jun 2013, 9:28 pm

btbnnyr wrote:

Interesting. Do you have a theory on why this difference exists?

Last edited by Rocket123 on 03 Jun 2013, 12:11 am, edited 2 times in total.

btbnnyr
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

02 Jun 2013, 9:32 pm

Rocket123 wrote:

btbnnyr wrote:

Interesting paper. Do you have a theory on why this difference exists?

There are multiple possible theories. One is being able to attend to more items at the same time, which rings verry merry berry true to me. I am going to start testing them out on myself.

_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!

Anomiel
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 17 Dec 2012
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,023

02 Jun 2013, 9:32 pm

marshall wrote:

Anomiel wrote:

marshall wrote:

Anomiel wrote:

marshall wrote:

I don't see the point in continuing if you're getting angry at me. I'm not angry at you. Whatever. :shrug:

Irritated, not angry :shrug:

Yeah, something like that, as you made no response whatsoever that you had understood my point. I made it black and white to easier point out where the difference was. :shrug:

Well, when you exaggerate something I say and argue against that, that's not a fair argument. You were attacking a straw man, not my real opinion. When you do that I feel the need to keep explaining.

OK, let's get really meta here then:
The only reason I responded is because you didn't seem to get the point.
It was also my way of asking if this was your opinion - if you then seem to agree by defending your position (which is quite natural) I assume I was correct. You also spent no time asking me what my definition of anything is, which makes the communication unsuccessful from both sides (though apparently I was the only one trying). So as I said, I agree that there is no point to it.

Rocket123
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Dec 2012
Age: 62
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,188
Location: Lost in Space

02 Jun 2013, 9:39 pm

Ettina wrote:

Makes sense.

Ettina wrote:

Similarly, the fact that autistics have poor working memory does not indicate poor central coherence. In fact, I'm pretty sure Temple Grandin has decent central coherence. Otherwise, she couldn't imagine a big complex machine in her head and watch it work (which she says she can do).

Your comment about Temple Grandin is interesting. In one of her books, she writes:

• “When I design equipment, I take bits and pieces of other equipment I have seen in the past and combine them to create a new system. All my thinking is bottom-up instead of top-down. I find lots of little details and put them together to form concepts and theories.”
• “The method of bottom-up thinking really works well for me in problem solving where a basic principle has to be determined from masses of conflicting data. One disadvantage of my kind of thinking is that huge amounts of data are required to find the answers.”

This is pretty much how I do my work as well (systems design, writing papers, etc.). I am extremely detailed oriented, working from the bottoms-up. Only once I have put the details together can I form the big picture.

Would you consider this decent central coherence? Just curious (from a definitional perspective).

Anomiel
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 17 Dec 2012
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,023

02 Jun 2013, 10:05 pm

btbnnyr wrote:

So everything is not done by conscious control, though I wonder how much is compared to NTs? Doesn't many autistics have difficulties with some tasks that are automatic for many? It is at least a big part in what distinguishes NTs and autistics when it come to communication.
What are some of the functions that are easier? Where the people visual thinkers or were there no correlation? I want to know more if you're willing to share

daydreamer84
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 8 Jul 2009
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,001
Location: My own little world

02 Jun 2013, 11:22 pm

Rocket123 wrote:

And, like a networked computing system, these activities are “layered” on top of one another. So, the higher-order layer relies on the lower-order layer. And, defects occurring in the lower-order layer have a rippling effect on the higher-order layers.

That's exactly how I understand executive functioning and I like the way you describe it here.

Ettina
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 Jan 2011
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,971

03 Jun 2013, 9:01 am

Quote:

• “When I design equipment, I take bits and pieces of other equipment I have seen in the past and combine them to create a new system. All my thinking is bottom-up instead of top-down. I find lots of little details and put them together to form concepts and theories.”
• “The method of bottom-up thinking really works well for me in problem solving where a basic principle has to be determined from masses of conflicting data. One disadvantage of my kind of thinking is that huge amounts of data are required to find the answers.”

This is pretty much how I do my work as well (systems design, writing papers, etc.). I am extremely detailed oriented, working from the bottoms-up. Only once I have put the details together can I form the big picture.

Would you consider this decent central coherence? Just curious (from a definitional perspective).

Yes, that's enhanced details with decent central coherence. If she had weak central coherence she couldn't form the big picture.

Whether you prefer to go bottom-up or top-down tends to indicate which is stronger between big picture and detail thinking. However, just because one is stronger doesn't mean the other is weak. Autistics are good with details, but most of us aren't bad with the big picture. (Although some 'big pictures' are hard for AS to get, due to other weaknesses such as poor social skills.)

daydreamer84
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 8 Jul 2009
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,001
Location: My own little world

03 Jun 2013, 12:49 pm

Ettina wrote:

Quote:

well, it could still be that ASD'ers are more likely to have stronger detail processing than big picture thinking whereas with the rest of the population it tends to be the other way around.

Rocket123
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Dec 2012
Age: 62
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,188
Location: Lost in Space

03 Jun 2013, 1:57 pm

Ettina wrote:

The more I read, the more I realize how little I understand: Theory of Mind, Executive Functioning, Central Coherence. Clearly I need to read more about this stuff. Because I do want to understand it more.

Anyway, in a paper, Frith describes Weak Central Coherence as, “a processing bias for featural and local information, and relative failure to extract gist or ‘see the big picture’ in everyday life.”

As such, I was thinking the example I gave (about designing systems) was an example of a processing bias for featural information. And, that this type of thinking (for designing systems) had little to do with everyday life (or minimally, is a very, very small part of everyday life).

You know, after thinking about it a bit more, I have a new thought. That the three cognitive theories of ASD -- including Theory of Mind (ToM; Baron-Cohen, 1989), Theory of Executive Dysfunction (Ozonoff, Pennington, & Rogers, 1991), Weak Central Coherence Theory (WCC; Frith & Happé, 1994; Happé, 1999) -- is similar to the story of six blind men being asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body.

btbnnyr
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago

03 Jun 2013, 3:35 pm

Anomiel wrote:

btbnnyr wrote:

I finished my term paper, the writing of which made me wish I were dead frequently over the week when I worked on it.

One study on visual search correlated performance with severity of social deficits in children. So performance on non-social task is correlated with social deficits. There was no correlation found between visual search and non-verbal intelligence (raven's) in another study. More detailed analysis is probably needed to find more correlations. Also, almost all of these cognitive studies on done with high-functioning autistic children or adults, so when we are talking about severity of social deficits, the severity is probably in moderate to mild range on whole spectrum.

_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!

Page 8 of 8 [ 126 posts ] Go to page Previous 1 ... 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Jump to:

Are you aware of your lacking Theory of Mind? Post Reply New Topic

Are you aware of your lacking Theory of Mind?