"Freezing" when a mic or camera is present...

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I've been meaning to post this for a while, and was inspired to finally do so by this thread: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt149575.html

This seems really strange to me.

Either alone, or with people with whom I'm comfortable, I can usually talk a mile a minute (if allowed), about any number of topics. More so if the topic is interesting to me (and there are many ~ but especially music). Even alone, I'll talk to myself (actually, it's more like talking to people I know who I imagine might be listening and responding). In both situations, whether there really is somebody there or not, my thoughts flow freely, as does my speech, to the point that if others are there, they practically HAVE to interrupt me to get a word in edgewise. Ask my wife! It drives her NUTZ!

As soon as I have a mic turned on in front of me, or a video camera, my mind goes temporarily blank. I have to concentrate extremely hard to pull my thoughts together and form cohesive sentences. It's so bad, I forget my train of thought, and end up speaking far more slowly and "jerkely" than normal. It only seems to happen when there's a mic or camera on.

What makes this really odd is that this DOESN'T happen over the telephone. On the phone, I'm just as I am in person (if not worse).

Yet, with live video "chat," I also freeze, in the same way I do with a mic. I HATE video chatting, because I run out of thoughts and words, yet I can talk to the same people with no trouble at all either in person or on the phone.

Back in the eighties, I DJ'd for a local college radio station a couple of different times. I could mix records like a pro, but the second the mic came on, no matter how prepared I was, with notes and everything, I would freeze.

Another thing that seems odd to me about this is that so many people don't "see" my Aspieness in person because I can talk to freely and with such animation on so many different topics. Turn on a mic or a video camera though, and suddenly I'm ALL aspie!

I'm song writer. I have NO trouble at all with the mic and singing, but ask me to speak, even from a written speech, and I'm as clumsy as an ox. Worse so if I'm ad libbing.

Anyone else find they act RADICALLY different in the presence of a mic or video camera?

I think you trump me a bit on age, so you probably remember Ralph Kramden on the Honeymooners?

Hum-ana , hum-ana , hum-ana
Yep. Mr. Freeze here. It's embarrassing.

The difference with the phone shows you that its mostly psychological. With the right motivation, you could get past it in time. People get used to jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, but I'm not motivated to embrace that kind of terror. I have gotten comfortable with microphones, as long as I'm the only person in the room, but I still hate cameras. I don't like other people in the room when I'm on the phone, either.

I'm not sure I get your point. If you want to split hairs, Autism is considered a neurological disorder, however neurological disorders have psychological effects. Many of the traits we have are psychological, to be sure, but many of the psychological affects are side effects of neurological hard wiring.

The difference with the phone is actually a lot more simple than that. With a mic in a studio, there is no one on the other end responding. On the telephone, there is.

The really odd part is that with video chat, there is someone actually on the "other end," yet I still go "blank," yet it's for a different reason.

And I think I know what the real differences are, and they aren't psychological, but neurological.

In person, with someone in the room, I can speak to and with them without looking directly at them the entire time, so facial interaction isn't a distraction.

On the phone, the same holds true.

When it's just a mic, or mic and camera, there is no one really there at all, yet I'm focused on the mic and camera, which is distracting.

Same with video chatting. Though there is a person there, it's their face, and I'm not able to avoid it. It's on the computer, where I'm used to viewing web pages and videos, which I must look at, so the setting seems to demand watching the face on the screen, which causes mind blank, because it's a face.

Looking away in order to keep focus on what I have to say is more noticeable on video chat than it is in person (everyone looks away in person off and on). I guess you could say it's somewhat psychological, but the psychological issues are there BECAUSE of the neurological.

When one doesn't make "eye contact" with a camera, it comes across as even odder than one who doesn't in person. I'm aware of that, so I try to avoid looking away. That, I suppose, is more of a psychological reason. BUT, there is the aspect of knowing that eye contact through the camera appearing more odd than in person that implies a societal "rule" that one should not avoid eye to camera contact totally while talking to someone over the web. When the issues of following unspoken rules come into play, that's neurological. I see the face, and it feels like direct eye contact (and in effect, it IS), therefore the mind blanks out because the face is too distracting.

Make sense?

When you said there's someone there responding on the phone (and presumably in your imagination when alone) I just had a thought that didn't occur to me at all until you said that. And this would even be completely nonpsychological if true, a characteristic of many separate neurological conditions.

Is the problem a matter of whether there is something actively cuing/triggering you into interaction?

I have an incredibly massive gap between purely voluntary/inched acts, and triggered acts. For me, this affects every system possible pretty much -- memory, thought, language, writing, movement, etc.

To give an example that's very concrete and movement related. I often have trouble voluntarily standing up from where I am sitting. But if someone holds up a coathanger and asks me to grab it, I will grab it and in the process of doing that I can stand up. I saw a movie once about people with a movement disorder in the same family as mine. One person was standing in a frozen posture and obviously unable to raise her arm on command. Someone threw a ball to her and she caught it, causing her arm to raise. Once I needed to grab a calendar from a wall above a couch. I was barely able to move at the time, and very slow. I deliberately tipped myself so I was falling towards the couch. This movement combined with the couch's shape and location caused me to run up the couch until I was standing on the back, grab the calendar, and run back down... and them freeze again. I had a chance to discuss these with the doctor the movie was about, and he said they are quite similar to the several different neurological movement disorders he treats.

So think about it this way: Could the problem be not the camera or the microphone itself, but the expectation that you're capable of speaking to what feels like a machine rather than a person. The person would trigger your speech but the machine would not.

I hope this isn't too far out of left field.

I record books for the blind and dyslexic. Talking into a mike is very easy for me.

ruveyn

I usually hate being filmed, and try to avoid it all the time. Like last year in my English class, my teacher had to film himself teaching his class for some project, and I really didn't want to be in it. So I said on the permission sheet (it didn't ask for a parent signature, it was just because the place he was submitting the video and his essay to needed to make sure every student agreed to be in it, or else he'd be disqualified) that I didn't want to be in it, and since I was the only one that refused to be in it, I got to film the class for the whole time on several days, that was fun.

Also, I despise talking to people on the phone too. Well, I don't hate talking to family, but I am usually deathly afraid of calling companies or stores or people I don't know.

Anbuend, you make a very good point. It's really difficult for me to speak on a camera, especially when I'm filming myself, because of course I already don't communicate well, and talking to the camera/myself makes it even more awkward.

Not out of left field at all! You've got some good points there really.

You're right. It does seem as though the presence of a person (whether real or imagined), IS necessary.

What seems odd about it is that I can talk endlessly and freely even with an imagined person present, but as soon as a mic or camera is present, I can't imagine anyone there at all.

I've only done the "mic" thing once, with another person present. While I was DJ'ing at a college station a long time ago, I invited a friend of mine, who is really good at adlibbing, and I felt far more animated and natural with him there. That show was the only good one I remember doing, apart from the music.