Lack of Imagination

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This topic has become rather bizarre.

Is there an "imagination gene?" Are there definitive MRIs where the difference between "imagination" and "creativity" can be clearly and objectively demonstrated in the brain? No. Is there a scientific metric by which we can reliably measure "imagination" and/or "creativity?" No. Consequently, what constitutes "imagination, "creativity," or "originality" is based on subjective opinions, not "facts." Attempting to determine if autistics have "impaired imagination," especially among the non-verbal/communication-impaired set, will be based on subjective opinions of observed behavior. Nothing more.

I'll make up my mind if autistics can have an "imagination" when researchers reveal the physical biological markers for what constitutes "autism" and the physical biological markers for "imagination," and subsequently demonstrate that the two never occur in the same person. Until then, "imagination" and "creativity" will continue to be fuzzy, ill-defined concepts that we cannot accurately measure; therefore, any mention that autistics "definitely do" or "definitely don't" have said attributes will be taken with a grain of salt by yours truly.

Furthermore, "lack of imaginative play" is listed in the DSM-IV as a criteria for autism. It is not for Asperger's. It is also not a criteria for Aspergers in the ICD-10 or in Gilbert's list. If it was a definitive trait, it's interesting that it never made it into the diagnostic standards. In the DSM-V, it specifically states that ASDs may have a lack of "social imagination," but it does not refer to "imagination" in general. Whether "lack of imagination" is important, and what is considered "imaginative play" will largely rest on the opinion of the medical professional you consult.

Personally, I'm both "imaginative" and "creative" and diagnosed with Asperger's by a psychologist whose job it is to know these things.

I lack imagination. I little while back I visited a counsellor for help with anxiety. Among other things she suggested I imagine myself some place relaxing, for example strolling along a beach. I tried but I just came up blank - the mental equivalent of a blue screen. This sort of thing happens quite often for me.

On the other hand I am very creative. I am very good at taking existing rules and applying them in a novel way. This shows up in my programming and some of the vehicles and mechanisms I build. When building stuff I have to draw it to be able to visualize it. I know what I want and how it will work but I can't imagine what it would look like until I draw it.

Oh, lord...

My point, once again, is not that YOU have a faulty understanding of what "imagination" is, but that a large number of the people whose reports you're basing your opinions on do. Seems like a pretty clear distinction to me. What good is your understanding the concept of "imagination" if your ideas about imagination in autistic individuals are largely built on the self-reporting of people who do not?



Forget about the papers and studies for a moment. It's rather common knowledge that a lack of visualization ability is (generally speaking) a hallmark of nonverbal learning disorder. Nonverbal learning disorder overlaps so much with Asperger's that many people consider the two profiles to describe virtually the same population. See how easy it is? Forget about the "science" (as if you can't find scholarly papers to support both sides of ANY argument) and just connect a few dots for yourself. What, exactly, would you consider "proper evidence" in a case like this?



I think Temple is a very creative person, not sure what your point is here. She's exceptional in many ways, and we should no sooner suspect that her superior visualization skills are evidence of similar skills in the autistic community in general than we should suspect that her ability to be a leader in her field is evidence that autistic people generally possess that capacity.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPWL5yimhyg

Do you think your hypothesis explains this young man's social difficulties?

Pretty funny when you consider the absolutely illogical and virtually meaningless post this comment serves as an introduction to!



Simply asking this question tells us that your understanding of genetics is rudimentary at best. Nice start.



I believe a better response would be, Of course not, what a stupid question.



Cartoonish ideas about standards of proof and the salience of the scientific method in its strictest form? Check and check!



Complete ignorance of the concepts of heterogeneity and severity? Check! Doesn't really understand autism? Check!



Straw men? Check! Black and white thinking? Check!



On one hand, you think it's impossible to quantify or ascertain imaginative faculties in any way that might be construed as factual, yet you also think it's noteworthy that imaginative impairment hasn't made it into official diagnostic criteria?

Cognitive dissonance? Check!



So you deny "facts" about imagination because there are no known "physical biological markers" for it, but you accept the "fact" of your autism, which you also claim there are no known "physical biological markers" for, just because some person who's supposed to be an authority on the subject said so?

Boy, you are one terribly confused individual.

@Poke Ah, I think we have gotten to the core of our issue: I do NOT consider NVLD and AS to be the same thing, and actually believe some cases of autism to be the opposite of NVLD, they just sometimes appear similar to do related issues that result from them. Notice how there is an higher rate of left-handedness among autistic people. If AS was NVLD, shouldn't the trend be the opposite? Also, I wasn't using lack of imagination threads to support my claim, I was using threads that directly related to the ability to visualize. As for the thing I said about severe autism and overactive imagination, well I was just basing the hypothesis on my own behavior, there isn't really much else I can do.

Heh. That seems to be the issue with several conditions with symptoms that seemingly overlap "autism."

With the merging of ASDs into one "spectrum," what "autism" actually is seems to be getting more and more murky. It's one of the reasons I view most research based on "observed behavior" and "self-reporting" with a certain amount of caution. In the absence of definitive bio-markers, we can discuss what "appears similar" to autism and what actually is "autism" until we're blue in the face, but the final verdict tends to be based on which medical professional you ask and how they choose to interpret things.

I've read a few things on NVLD. Some people are convinced it's the same; some people are convinced it's different. It, like everything else, relies on what you personally believe is "significant" to each condition.



There's not much else anyone can do. Your theory is about as good as any other theory. There's no way to accurately determine how well someone "imagines." As you've previously stated, we can both attempt to "imagine" a truck, but there's no objective way to determine who is "better" at "imagining" it, or if someone merely believes they're "imagining" it, but they're not really.

As for "imagination" and "autism," I still have yet to find a solid, concrete definition of what the heck "imaginative play" is. And it doesn't seem to be important enough to be included in any of the diagnostic criteria as it currently stands. If autistics can "imagine" depends on the opinion of whatever researcher you pay attention to. Furthermore, attempting to determine if children and communication-impaired individuals have an "imagination" is particularly silly as whether you can "imagine" will be based on self-reporting ("observed behavior" is garbage because you can't determine if a child is "imagining" by merely watching them), which tends not to be a "strength" of people who have a hard time communicating.

Lastly, to reiterate, there's no solid understanding of the physical reality of "autism." We have a generalized "spectrum" of similar behavior, but only hints as to the underlying "causes." It's a bit silly to take a fuzzy, concept like "imagination" and use it as an important, determining factor of yet another rather "fuzzy" condition.

It's a lot like discussing how many angels can dance on the head of an "autistic" pin.

Autistic imagination is often pattern-based and rote-memory based. ie photographic memory
Considering the brain structure is intense clusters of neurons
Autistic creativity tends to be highest with obsessive goal-oriented creations

Neither do I. I didn't say that they're "the same thing", I said Nonverbal learning disorder overlaps so much with Asperger's that many people consider the two profiles to describe virtually the same population. The important words here are "overlaps" and "virtually", neither of which would've been necessary or appropriate if I simply felt that Asperger's and NLD were "the same thing".

The view I expressed on the relationship between the two profiles is widely acknowledged/accepted. When you grasp the nature of these conditions, and the differing points of view from which they are described, it should make perfect sense to you that while there IS a massive overlap and that they DO essentially describe the same population, not everything that's Asperger's is NLD.



The difficulty I feel as to exactly where to begin responding to this passage speaks to the confusion therein. First of all, Asperger's is a subset of autism, so even if every autistic person who didn't fit the profile of Asperger's were left-handed, it wouldn't disprove the viewpoint I expressed, as I'm not saying that NLD has a huge overlap with autism in general, just Asperger's. Second, there's a higher incidence of EVERY type of neurological dysfunction/difference in autism, not just left-handedness. Third, left-handedness isn't an absolute indicator of left hemisphere impairment. See for example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6580656 where it's found in individuals who show, if anything, primarily right hemisphere symptomology.

You might be interested in this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCYHsL-9tLY
...in which the relationship between various right hemisphere symptomologies is discussed.



There is no such thing as conditions that "seem like" autism, as autism itself is strictly a condition of "seeming like". If something seems like autism, it IS autism, to one degree or another.

So much confusion and misunderstanding on this forum.

Not everyone refers back to the Wikipedia or dictionary meaning of words, people often refer to meanings of words the way they're used in real life. I think no one is in the wrong here.

Heh.

I'm pretty sure Hans Asperger, Lorna Wing, Kanner, et. al. didn't refer to Wikipedia whole conducting their research......

Well Poke, let's say I'm only referring to Aspergers sans NVLD. I have AS and I definately do not fall under the traits of NVLD, I have fairly good spatial skills, I'm great at math, and I'm left handed. Happy now?

That's like saying NT's arent sociopathic douches.

This is true in a general sense, but the distinction here is very important. When we use the word "imagination" in the proper sense, we are referring to a specific cognitive ability (or set of abilities). When the definitions of the word is generalized/softened/bastardized to the degree it often is (such as throughout this thread), we quickly come to use it in cases where it's not merely inappropriate, but where it does not apply whatsoever. Such as my case, where "creative" behavior might lead someone to consider me an imaginative person, when the truth of the matter is that I have absolutely no imaginative faculty whatsoever. Not only is it inaccurate to say that I have a good imagination, it's profoundly misleading, as I actually have a severe deficit in this area.

Allow me a comparison...let's say we generalize the concept of "legs" to mean anything that produces the effect of individual mobilization. All of a sudden, people who would've previously been recognized as not having legs are considered to have legs after all because they're in wheelchairs which allow them to move around.

Now think of what a conversation between a person wasn't aware of the new definition and a person who had already adopted it might be like.

"That person has legs."

"No, they don't. They're clearly legless."

"But look at them moving about!"

"They're using a wheelchair to move about. They don't have legs."

[insert smartass comment about not using dictionaries to define words]

It doesn't matter if every other person in the world agreed to use the new definition of legs--a useful distinction and important concept would have been softened to the point of uselessness. The same thing happens when we take "imagination" to mean anything that produces the result of creativity. Does this "softened" definition make a big difference when used in everyday life? No, not really. It doesn't matter whether Billy's mommy tells her neighbors that Billy is "imaginative" or "creative" (you might also say that an "everyday life" reference to a legless person being given "legs" by a wheelchair is acceptable in a slightly poetic, metaphorical way). But when it comes to ascertaining cognitive faculties and describing clinical profiles, the greater degree of specificity makes all the difference in the world.



Your contributions to this thread have been illogical, contradictory nonsense.

Heh.



You realize that, although estimates vary, you're referring to the minority of people with Asperger's, right? Because, generally speaking, about 80% of people with Asperger's fit the profile for NLD (80% is the figure you'll see most often, although I've seen anything from 60% to 90% reported).



Well, I was happy to begin with, but I don't think you've ruled out NLD. Some of my spatial skills are quite good, I was very strong in math (up until calculus or so), and I'm very good at reading maps, yet I'm the poster boy for NLD. And if you really aren't a good fit for the NLD profile (which is perfectly possible) you're simply in the minority among people with Asperger's.

@Poke

Well if you claim to have absolutely no imagination, how do you have good spacial skills?

My business is fueled by imagination and creativity. I don't do ordinary - at least not very enthusiastically and for very long.

I seem to be able to connect dots that few others can even see - which I thought was an Autistic trait shared by many of us.

In fact, it seems that much of the advancement of our species has been the work of those who exhibited very strong Autistic behaviour....

Some of my spatial skills are strong, some are poor. I have "good aim" in regard to things like throwing a ball, shooting a gun or bow, etc. But I have little ability to estimate distance concretely, drive a car, etc. My depth perception is poor--the world looks the same to me whether I look at it with one or both eyes. Like many autistic individuals, my skills are highly uneven, even within a category like "spatial skills". The obvious conclusion is that not all spatial skills are dependent on imagination.

Often times people with a reasonably strong imaginative faculties are shocked that I can do do certain things without those faculties. When I explained my condition to a cousin of mine, he couldn't understand how I could find things funny--how I could have a sense of humor--without an imagination. Another person couldn't understand how I could know that a basketball was larger than a baseball. The truth this, these things can be tackled from a purely intellectual angle.