Somewhat Flawed Autism Study

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I feel like I take in everything all at once too. All the leaves on all the trees and every little dent in the asphalt on the road. There is a giant field of reeds near my house, and walking next to that thing is always overloading. Reed! Reed! Reed! Reed! Reed! Reed! Reed!

I read a paper about autistic people processing both local and global information at the same time. The study showed that autistic people are better at identifying symmetry in patterns of lots of dots with vertical, horizontal, or oblique symmetry. Identifying patterns requires simultaneous local and global processing. The paper mentioned that people who process information globally do so at the expense of local processing or being able to see the details, while people who process information locally do so at the expense of global integration, e.g. seeing food as shapes or patterns instead of recognizing as food to eat, seeing facial expressions as little skin wrinklings instead of states of mind. This paper showed that in certain situations, such as identifying symmetry in dot patterns, autistic people are superior at doing both at the same time. I feel that this local + global simultaneous processing is what I am doing when I am walking around outside seeing everything in my field of view, and it is overloading. I really don't feel that I see the world in bits and pieces, as is often ascribed to autistic people. I feel that I see everything all at once. If I saw bits and pieces, then it wouldn't be as overloading. I would just focus on one little spot and stare at it, which I sometimes do and enjoy doing. But the little spots that I stare at are usually made up of even smaller patterns, like the fur on the ear of my stuffed bunny or the bristles at the base of my hairbrush. I feel like I lose hold of the global processing when sensory overload happens, and my brain starts to shut down, like the integration is the first thing to go. After that, I start making mistakes, and easy tasks become difficult.

I think it is. They ask because they have a steady stream of thoughts, it isn't just a convention but something that makes sense to them. It pleases me that I've worked this out.

I think that study & research results may be backwards. I have an internal dialog & I think in words. I assume NT think more visual than Aspies sense NTs notice more visual things(like body language, facial expressions, clothing, decorations ect) & Aspies would think in words sense have better route memory

NTs attend to peopley stuff and the study says their brain idling time, or daydreaming, is devoted to offline processing of that stuff. They don't consciously think visually without some considerable difficulty, I think.

Knitting or crochet with yarn is good, but especially knitting because you don't have to look at it at all: you can keep your eyes mostly on the speaker. Only if a problem comes up with the knitting do you have to look at it.

I don't "hear" them, I _think_ them as words. If I'm reading poetry or a song or something that's meant to be heard, even though I'm not actually vocalizing it, I still read much more slowly because I _am_ hearing the sound of the words, the poet's intent, in my head.

But doing math, I'm not sure how I'm thinking it. The lower grades I got in math were because I hadn't written down all the steps, even though I had the right answer. It was a real pain in the neck to write it down one step at a time, but I wasn't exactly visualizing it either. I had to "translate" to write it all down.

Ouch! I think I need to read the whole thread again two or three times, with space between posts for processing. I feel like the centipede who tried to watch himself walk and figure out which leg to put down next: he wound up paralyzed.

Several of the methods of thinking looked like something I do sometimes. I definitely do the constant babble sometimes, and not all of the time, but that hearing a sequence of words or a phrase from a song from the outside, and winding up with the whole song, melody and all, as background in my head for even days on end: yes, I do that.

I used to have an internal monologue but at a certain point it went away. If I try to force it, now, it feels exhausting and clumsy. So, maybe my brain dropped it because it functions more efficiently without it. If such a thing were taught to me as a kid I would hope it would be with the understanding that my own ways, while possibly odd, might work better for me. I'm also reminded of how I had to learn to 'translate' standard math teaching & texts into a form that I could understand.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/di ... id=8481647

Inner voice used for short term memory but not planning.

Short term memory is verbally mediated? What does that mean?

I took a verbal working memory test a couple of times. Once trying to memorize the words verbally, and once visually. The first time was not deliberate, I was following the instructions, and I scored very low on verbal working memory, as in the bottom 2% or 5% of people who took the test.

I decided to try it by remembering and recalling the visual image that each word invoked, and I scored perfect recall and in the 95th percentile based on both recall and reaction time for my age group.

"Confirming that short-term memory is typically verbally mediated among the majority of people with ASD"

So, not everyone. You do sound unusually visual, Verdandi.

Okay, but what does it mean that it mediates short term memory?

Like if you're remembering a shopping list or telephone number by repeating the item names (or numbers) in your head. I actually stopped doing that for shopping and went to a linked visual memory system - which anyone can do. But they're saying verbal would be the default method for most people.

Wouldn't it be ironic if you turned out to be the only autistic person here and everyone else was misdiagnosed, V?

This is a very common problem with AS I think and maybe a good example of the differences in thinking style. I have this problem with showing proof as well. I do very well in math in college and it never fails that others in class will come to me for help. It also never fails that they walk away confused. It occurred to me finally that most people don't process math the way that I do. For me math is purely visual while most kids are taught to talk out the problems. I go from step A to step D in my head then summarize in step E while the people I'm trying to help have no idea how I arrived there because they have to go through the steps sequentially. But the problem with this is that I have difficulty showing proof because steps B and C happen automatically as part of the visual manipulation of the problem I do in my head. So basically a five step process is a 3 step process in my mind. It always irritates me when I lose points on proof when I have the right answer, never made sense to me.

Also telephone numbers or other numbers are totally visual for me. I see the numbers in my head and take a 'picture' to remember them.

I don't memorize things that way. For phone numbers, I need to repeat verbally (which I practically never do) or refer to an address book or whatever. I remember trying to transcribe bits from videos or books for whatever reason, and I can do 1-3 words at a time, and often forget the words and have to repeat the segment to get the words. Some sentences are easier to recall for some reason, but overall that sort of thing is difficult.

As for shopping lists, I do the same thing every time I go to the store, so I just follow my usual route and get my usual things (if I need them).



I don't know if it'd be ironic, but it does strike me as extremely unlikely.

My "internal voice" never shuts up either. I talk to myself all the time-- sometimes out loud, sometimes only in my head. "OK now do this, OK now do that." It also mimics the voices of people I particularly love/trust or people I have particular problems with.

Generally, if I listen to it only a moderate amount, I'm OK. If I tune it out entirely or use it too much, that's when I get in trouble.

Why can't people just think the way they think, and learn to make the most of their own manner of thinking?? That's what I'd like to ask these idiots.