Aspies or NTs thinking in words or pictures?

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Joe90
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16 Dec 2011, 3:28 pm

I don't understand. If NTs have social imagination, then do they think in pictures?

What is thinking in words mean? If it means you feel like there is a little person living right inside your conscience constantly chatting away to you in your head all the time, then I must think in words.

What does thinking in pictures mean? If it means you feel like there's a photo album or a DVD or video tape playing in your mind with clear pictures, then I must sometimes think in pictures then, but usually my mind gets distracted into words again.

But if Aspies are more logical thinkers, then don't it mean we think in words? Because usually it says Aspies think in pictures. I really don't understand.

If I was on the bus and out of the window saw, say, a man laying unconscious on the pavement, a little voice in my mind would say, ''oh look, there's a man laying there on the pavement....I hope he's all right....'' Is that what happens in an NT's mind too when seeing something? Or does an NT look and take a little picture in their mind of the situation, and store it in their memory ready to tell someone about it later, rather than having a voice there in their minds literally telling them what they just saw? Then what is this thinking in? Words or pictures? Then they say thinking too much causes anxiety, which is about true for me. So I'm not sure what NTs think in.

Help me out here.


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cathylynn
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16 Dec 2011, 4:34 pm

i have AS and i think in words. temple grandin thinks in pictures. i think it's an individual difference that can go either way whether you have autism or are neurotypical.



Marcotulio
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16 Dec 2011, 4:52 pm

I can think in words and images, and even more, I can think by paths which I can´t explain very well because they are intuitive... For example, when I see a wall I don´t hear "this is a wall" I "know" it is a wall, and perhaps many people think in this way too.
But I don´t think you need to separate all forms of thinking as if they were different worlds... It depends on the occasion.
When I´m in a profound stage of thinking (for example, when thinking about philosophy) I can hear words in my head as if I am giving a speach to an audience, and I can also see images popping in my mind eye, so the experience is very rich and much more efective.
I do think that people can have a primary mode of thinking, though, and it can be visual, verbal, kinesthesic etc... And it can be different between aspies just as it can be different between NT´s.
In my particular case I don´t have a primary mode of thinking (I think...)



Last edited by Marcotulio on 16 Dec 2011, 5:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.

fraac
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16 Dec 2011, 4:55 pm

Joe, I'm like you, I have no idea what 'thinking in pictures' is supposed to mean, or how we're different from NTs. I think of whatever I want. Doesn't everyone? Ich verstehe es nicht.



TheSunAlsoRises
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16 Dec 2011, 6:06 pm

fraac wrote:
Joe, I'm like you, I have no idea what 'thinking in pictures' is supposed to mean, or how we're different from NTs. I think of whatever I want. Doesn't everyone? Ich verstehe es nicht.


I knew a kid who 'picture read'.

Basically, what this kid could do, is just by looking at the pictures in a kindergarten or first grade level book; he could relay the story back in the words that were written on the pages. Come to find out, he could barely read the written word at ALL BUT he could read the pictures well enough to fool everyone.

He was kept back in second grade because he couldn't read the written word. How it was discovered is another story. LoL

His first applicable language is pictures. His second applicable language is the written word.

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fraac
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16 Dec 2011, 6:10 pm

I still don't get it.



TheSunAlsoRises
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16 Dec 2011, 6:24 pm

fraac wrote:
I still don't get it.



What are you thinking of right at this very moment ? Better yet, how are you thinking ? Do you see patterns first?? Do you need words to form ideas, first ? Do you use mathematics, geometrical objects, first? Do you make associates better by using art?

Thinking in Pictures is simply one way that your thought processes might work. There are numerous.

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Last edited by TheSunAlsoRises on 16 Dec 2011, 6:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AlastorX
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16 Dec 2011, 6:36 pm

I am very visual; that is why I always got A's or B's in geometry and C or D in arithmetic.
When I read, I form pictures in my head and then, I can fully understand it.
I am not good at remembering dates, names, phone numbers and so on, but I can describe certain place, certain things I saw years later to tiniest detail.



fraac
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16 Dec 2011, 7:53 pm

TheSunAlsoRises wrote:
fraac wrote:
I still don't get it.



What are you thinking of right at this very moment ? Better yet, how are you thinking ? Do you see patterns first?? Do you need words to form ideas, first ? Do you use mathematics, geometrical objects, first? Do you make associates better by using art?

Thinking in Pictures is simply one way that your thought processes might work. There are numerous.

TheSunAlsoRises


Can you answer those questions? I was thinking of nothing. I think when I need to. My idling thought is running scenes of dialogue from prospective future conversations.



kevinjh
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16 Dec 2011, 8:23 pm

I tend to think in concepts which often end up as pictures. I am trying to teach myself to think in words, but that only generally works well when I am working with languages, philosophizing, or doing other verbal topics. It is hard to explain, "concept," but it seems to be some kind of fit, lock, or connection that feels correct. If the concept itself has strong connections with visual appearance, something, "clicks," into visual thought. I wonder if this mode is common among those on the spectrum.



TheSunAlsoRises
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16 Dec 2011, 10:38 pm

fraac wrote:
TheSunAlsoRises wrote:
fraac wrote:
I still don't get it.



What are you thinking of right at this very moment ? Better yet, how are you thinking ? Do you see patterns first?? Do you need words to form ideas, first ? Do you use mathematics, geometrical objects, first? Do you make associates better by using art?

Thinking in Pictures is simply one way that your thought processes might work. There are numerous.

TheSunAlsoRises


Can you answer those questions? I was thinking of nothing. I think when I need to. My idling thought is running scenes of dialogue from prospective future conversations.


In that case, you could possibly be a visual word thinker. It's possible to think a combination of ways.

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Verdandi
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16 Dec 2011, 11:57 pm

Joe90 wrote:
But if Aspies are more logical thinkers, then don't it mean we think in words? Because usually it says Aspies think in pictures. I really don't understand.


No. Logic isn't linked specifically to thinking in a language. One friend of mine (who is an Aspie, but not on the forum) says she thinks in abstract mathematical concepts and she is certainly capable of logic.

Anyway, people think in a lot of different ways - in words, pictures, abstractions, colors, and so on. I think almost entirely in sensory impressions - pictures, sounds, smells, etc., and my memory works the same way. But when I write, I try to be as explicit and clear as possible, cover as many angles as possible - extremely "verbal" - which I suspect has something to do with the need to translate what I am thinking into words, which tends to only happen when I talk to myself or write.

NTs and autistic people both have a variety of ways to think. I mean as groups. Individuals tend to have their own way to think. I also think that NTs tend to be more capable of thinking in more than one mode than autistic people.



DreamSofa
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17 Dec 2011, 1:06 pm

I think in words: my thoughts are internalised speech, in my own voice.



Joe90
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17 Dec 2011, 1:40 pm

DreamSofa wrote:
I think in words: my thoughts are internalised speech, in my own voice.


That is exactly how I think too.

I do think in pictures too, but most of the time I think in words.


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17 Dec 2011, 1:58 pm

I was on a course at work. As part of an ice-breaker, the trainer read out a story, then asked 10 or so questions about it, which we had to write the answers to, like a test. For most of the questions, my answers were 'don't know', whereas everyone else had written either 'yes' or 'no'. I got them all correct. The trainer said it was because I must be a very verbal thinker, but I totally disagree with her assessment. The reason I said 'don't know' to everything was because there were too many blanks in my visual image of the story. For example, the story went a bit like 'the ground was wet', so I visualised a wet ground. Then the question was 'had it been raining?' In my mind, I only knew the ground was wet, I had no knowledge and no visual image of any rain, so I had to say 'don't know' - I think everyone else said 'yes' to that one. Maybe it was also because I had a more literal interpretation of the story than the others and I could also think of many reasons why the ground could be wet. But my visualisation of it was behind my correct answers, I'm sure.

But, I also have an internal dialogue going on all the time. That's more to do with interpreting my thoughts into words, for the sake of externalising them, or going over conversations that didn't go well and restructuring them, so that I come out on top. This is a hindrance to me and does not help with my anxiety. If I'm free of the internal dialogue, I'm much more relaxed and back in my real mind. Or as Marcotulio said, when I'm thinking very deeply about something philosophical or profound, it's like how I would present a speech or lecture. But, it's not really part of my thinking process, it's more about how I get my thoughts from my head to my mouth to someone else's ears (not that I regularly vocalise this internal dialogue).


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icyfire4w5
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17 Dec 2011, 10:01 pm

I'm an Aspie who thinks mostly in words. When I think in pictures, at best, I can only form fuzzy pictures in my mind. I assume that most NTs think in a mixture of words and pictures, meaning that they play "movie clips" in their minds.