Do you see people as people?

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^ in accord with morgana above and the grass-cutting predicament. (doesn't it hurt the grass?)

I lived in a world of anthropomorphizing objects and as a kid, people would remark on how many small things i would put in my pockets. Once i formed "a relationship" with a twig, a stone, a shell or a branch, once I developed a bond with it - which i did more easily with these objects from the natural environment than i did with those scary weird people things, I tended to want to take them home. Those objects are and were more fathomable and predictable than unpredictable human beings. They were and are so important to me.

This anthropomorphism has continued on into adulthood and has never dissipated. And it is my main means of safe connection with the material reality that surrounds me. I wonder if it develops in some of us autistics as a kind of reaction to the difficulties with unsafe and unfathomable human beings?

I have never sought a diagnosis for anything, but I've been studying autism since my son was diagnosed six years ago, and I believe I have Asperger's.




I do, but perhaps not in the most typical way. I also recognize trees, snails, cows, and lichen as like me in some ways but different in others. When I walk past a bunch of people playing softball on a field, I have no interest in looking at them or trying to relate to their experience in any way. I mean, I know they are people, but I don't care about what they are doing, or whether or not it's anyone who I ought to recognize from somewhere. When I walk past a family of ducks, I walk carefully so as not to startle them, and I do wonder if they are having a nice day, and that kind of thing. If I saw someone who appeared to be in trouble, like an old lady falling down, I would see if she needs assistance, because I would be aware that she might have a broken hip or something, and might need help. If I see a beetle on its back, with its little legs flailing in the air, I feel compelled to help it get right side up. When I go to pick my kids up from school, where there are many other parents and kids, I don't look around at individual people and try to connect with them, or really have any feelings or thoughts about them at all, unless they are parked illegally. I just try to get us to our car and away from the din and chaos. In that situation, people are pretty much just lumps in my way...except I know that they are people, and I exercise common courtesy, like not pushing them out of my way.



I don't seek out human contact very much. It didn't occur to me until well into adulthood that I was "supposed" to, because I don't think my mother ever did. People have never just sought out my company for the sake of saying hi, so it seemed odd to do it to someone else. I'll sometimes say a few friendly words to the check out person at the grocery store of something like that, but in my experience, if I do that, they don't say much back. Typically they get all chatty with a co-worker or another customer, and ignore me. If I am someplace, and I see someone that I know, I won't go out of my way to get their attention (unless it's my mother, or a certain friend), but I'll smile and nod if they look my way.

I am aware that people are not just objects or toys, and when I interact with people I do not treat them as objects or toys. At least I hope I don't. Then again, we have two toys in our house who are just as special and important to me as any person. One is Humphrey, my son's stuffed elephant. Humphrey is part of the family, and we all love him. I know he's not "alive", but no one in our family would stand for seeing him mistreated. If he's lying face down on top of a dirty sock, I'll pick him up and say, "Oh, poor Humphrey" and put him in a more comfortable position. It's the same with my little Lego guy in my avatar. He's sat in a little chair enjoying a Lego Guinness right now. They have "life" by virtue of being loved. So....I'm not sure how that answers the question, or how far that strays from "typical".

I see people as distortions of Plato's projections on the cave of bizarre objects. If anything, I see people for themselves, without the preconceptions that often plague NTs.

I have vague memories going as far back as when I was three years old. I've always been a little self-centered but I didn't ever see people as objects. I tended to play with adults rather than other children because adults were more willing to cooperate and follow my own rules. My play was more structured / choreographed than other children.

The possibility of solipsism didn't even occur to me until I was nine or so.

This is a very good explanation, and describes pretty much how I view the world too.

I wish I had the luxury of objectifiying people and cateogorizing people based on social status, pecking orders and their ability to follow social conventions like neurotypicals. It would make life a lot easier.

But alas, I don't! Perhaps the physiologist is right? I do have a hard time objectifiying neurotypicals as "geeks", stoners, redheads and so on. Perhaps I am blind to the differences between Slovaks and Batswana? (people from Botswana?) Perhaps I shouldn't be thinking about dating a person from a differnet culture because she dosen't complement my object.

Perhaps I can't be neatly packaged into a preassembled product on the assembly line in the job market?

Hmm, the physiologist is right. I do have a hard time relating to others as objectified people along the context of the shallow lines of socialization by neurotypicals. Perhaps I can see people's aspirations and inspirations, and hopes and accomplishments. Perhaps this, perhaps that, but certainily not as a replaceable commodity which can do the job which I am too lazy, to selfish and to preoccupied to do on my own.

I think the same, one thing that was difficult to understand for me as a child is that all living creatures (humans included) surrounding me had a brain as well, and therefore intelligence, memories and even feeling (even instinctive feelings).

That is very interesting. Thanks for sharing

I can't do that and am considered NT (ADHD( I am honeslty beginning to doubt that lately.

Well I've met some very nice so called "NTs" and I don't believe they do this (not on a conscious level anyway). If you were to ask them they'd claim to know all about bigotry and racism etc. If you said the above to them, they'd be quite offended.

So, I don't believe that many of them do this consciously (not unless there's a major conflict for resources or they've been misinformed etc).

What I do believe they do is seek out social comfort. They are driven to find a group that will accept them. Once they've found the group, many of them will go to extreme lengths to feel this social comfort and be accepted, even if it means changing their lifestyles to suit other people. The idea of not having a group or people to associate with is terrifying for these people. This is why they're only ever alone if they really have to be. Given the choice, they'd much rather work with a group of their friends on a project than work alone. The social bonds and drives are that strong. They couldn't honestly imagine life any other way. The idea of solitude and not having anyone seems terrifying to them, like the end of the world. This fear and longing for comfort drives them to seek others.

Their comfort zones are their social groups. Some of them really are locked into obligations and relationships with that group. The problems come when something threatens the comfort level in the group: a new addition, someone not fitting in or a challenge from another group. Some of the extremely social ones are so immersed in socialising that they are oblivious to the surrounding physical environment.

They define themselves on the basis of the social group they belong, some of them to such an extreme extent that they define outsiders as "others" or "the enemy". They're basically afraid of the unknown and prefer social comfort. They prefer familiarity and behaviours that they can predict.

This is why I believe that so called "pecking orders" and so on are "emergent phenomena". These things aren't static and many people subconsciously follow them because these things are the result of socialising in a group.

They find social comfort by chatting to each other and doing each other favours.
It's a kind of social mutual grooming really.
I'm not completely immune from this either. I've met some exceptionally nice people and been chatted with, so I can see why some people actively seek social interactions.

Ironically, the times I've felt most lonely are the times where someone has chatted to me and given me a brief glimpse of what I'm missing. It's like an addictive drug almost, when you stop taking it after a while, you go out of "cold turkey" and don't feel so driven to socialise. It's only when there's high social expectations that I'm driven or have to force myself to socialise, otherwise I'm really not so bothered.

I'm not saying that extremely social people are bad.
These kinds of people do really well in jobs that require a lot of social interaction.
It makes sense really, if you define your life by your relationships to other humans, you very probably want to dedicate your life to serving, and helping them.
If you view the world as based mainly on social interactions, you may be brilliant at relating to people, but relatively blind when it comes to looking at the physical environment.

I've met some extremely social people (mainly women I have to say) who find it very hard to talk about things that refer to details in the physical environment. They can't seem to say (socially unaided):

"Oh look that's a [insert species]. I can tell by the [insert details here]"

"This part of building seems to have been built earlier/later than that part. I can tell by the style of the architecture [insert details here]. The materials/masonry/ indicate...This [insert detail] is a reference to [insert mythology/family history]. "

"This [insert machine] was used for [insert description]. It worked by [insert explanation]. You can see the [inset details of machine].

The more extreme ones seem to have to find out this kind of information through other people (by being explicitly taught), rather than observing their everyday physical environments and coming to these conclusions for themselves. Some of them seem to find these kind of topics "boring". They seem to have no curiosity about discovering the physical environment by themselves. Which, I suppose would make sense. If you define your life mainly in terms of interactions with others, anything inanimate/non-human that won't talk with you would seem pretty boring.

Important questions asked by highly social people tend to be directed towards the other person, such as:

"How are you?"

"What are you doing?"

"Who are you going with?"

"What do you think?"


There are also people in the middle of the "sliding scale" who can switch their attentions between the physical and social environments easily. They feel comfortable, successful and enthusiastic doing both.

I've also met women who are very observant about the physical environment.

I believe now that different people have different kinds of "perceptual radar". Some perceptions are more adapted and useful for some tasks than others.

It depends a little on how you define it. I did not identify with OP’s quote nor with gina-ghettoprincess’ textbook.

I’ve never thought of people as objects the same as a glass or a pacifier.

But up to the end of my tween years it never occurred to me that other people had real feelings and thoughts, and even less that they had a life without me. Which is weird since the kids in my class would often talk about things they had experienced outside of school, but somehow although realising they were telling the truth, I didn’t quite fathom that they existed when I wasn’t around. They were cardboard people to me. However, I don’t think this is necessarily connected to autism as it seems a lot of children need some time to really get it.

But the weird thing is that I always, even as a preschooler, understood that animals had feelings and I treated them gently. I strongly felt compassion, sympathy and empathy for them.

Also, I easily saw nature and objects as animate. When I saw toys children left outdoors when they went in, I thought those children heartless allowing their toys to be exposed to the elements. I actually felt sorry for those toys. I felt that way about lots of objects.

But never people. Maybe that means that I saw people as objects and objects and animals as people? I think I was 13 the first time I felt sorry for a human (my sick grandmother).

My view of people since my early years was mostly as a source of annoyance.

When I began to understand that my parents weren’t just my parents, they were also a man and a woman with their own lives, thoughts and most of all past, I felt it overwhelming. I was a teen. (But isn’t it quite normal for kids to take their families for granted?) It’s a bit weird, though, as I have always loved my family highly.

I still to some degree see people as cardboard figures. They have little significance to me and I am baffled whenever someone says something that gives me true insight into who they are, what they think and the depth of their emotions. However, I don’t know how much of that is neurology and how much is me being introverted and detached from most.

I don’t know if this is related, but I also felt overwhelmed when I at age 11 began to realise that events had taken place before I was born. How could that be? How could anything exist independent of me? And I would one day not be, and the world would still be here? Mind boggling…

Me too, but I'm skeptical this is unusual. Do we know this is an AS view of the world? It would seem to me that many folks who are NT would also view the world this way.

One could argue that this is a gift related to AS. You are more likely to see people for who they are, not the category to which they belong. (Except bullies, perhaps. )

I don't know a lot about brain science or psychology, but I was wondering:

If it was hypothetically possible to turn all social/emotional cognition off, would that just leave the object and motion tracking (analytic cognition)?

Would extreme analytic cognition actually an absence of syncretic (social and emotional) cognition?

I was thinking about physics: that's basically the study of the motion tracking of objects.


I don't think I'm that severe and certainly wouldn't match the article's claims.

Is this to do with the fact that I'm female and perhaps have more inbuilt syncretic cognition?
Maybe enough to sympathise with people and humans, but not in an overt social way?

Is syncretic cognition hormone driven, lower levels of hormone in the brain, less syncretic cognition?

I find it quite hard to concentrate on other people sometimes, especially in themed seaside bars.

I'll be distracted by the ships in bottles; Toby Jugs; ship's bells; anchors; fish in glass cases; plastic crustaceans; paintings of galleons; netting in the ceiling; laterns; life rings and ship's helm wheels.

All of these fascinating objects make it really hard for me to focus on socialising.
This is because all the people seem to be in the background and all the objects in the foreground.
I don't dislike people or view them as objects. I feel as if I care about them.
It's just hard for me to focus on socialising when there are so many enticing objects "just begging" to be investigated.

I usually end up saying:

"Oh look there's a..."


Because I can't think of anything else to say and because I'm captivated by the object.

I don't know if this is really part ADHD or not.

I do the same thing, except for me it's if I am hearing music that I am interested in. I can be actively engaged in conversation with someone about anything, but if I suddenly hear something I like or need to take a closer listen to, I will immediately shut down the current conversation and throw in a complete derailer such as, "Wow, listen to that guitar part!"