Mind Blindness caused by too much or too little information?

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First an intro, I'm 35 and just got diagnosed with Aspergers. What a stunning revelation, discovery, suddenly all these years of subtle but serious difficulties in varied areas of my life begin to make sense... It's profoundly disturbing, but also exciting.

One thing that confuses me, is that when I read the medical lit and the NT-perspective on "mind blindness", it always seems to suggest that Aspergers people aren't able to extract enough information about their social situations to function fluidly. The very term "mind blindness" suggests a lack of seeing, rather than a seeing too much. I feel that what I experience is quite the opposite, I drown in information and probabilities. If I am in a social situation I feel acutely aware of what every single gesture of the other parties might mean. I'm seeing everything, including things which are mere slight probabilities, it's not a lack of seeing, realizing, empathizing, it's a lack of being able to make reasonable selections of the data I'm aware of to have the best chance at having a successful encounter. Does this make sense to other people with Aspergers? Is this what most people with Aspergers experience? Is this what the medical literature and NTs are wrongly describing?

Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I really think I'm excellent at detecting potential cues, nuances, etc. in social situations, but I just get lost (and make errors) in the attempt to process, evaluate, and react to all that stimuli. But I'm not "blind"...

Thanks!

I'm the kid that no one knows,
I live a life I never chose.
With these thoughts in my mind,
On my own, my own.

I'm face to face with the unknown,
My scary movie will be shown.
I've got one evil mind,
Of my own, of my own.

We take from one another,
And never stop to wonder,
How it feels from the other side.
Well nothing lasts forever,
When stupid turns to clever,
Why are you surprised?

Little know it all (little know it all),
Ten bucks in my hands.
Little know it all (little know it all),
Don't cry, I understand.
So!

I'm a target of the smart,
They got ambition, I got heart.
I'm analyzed and tagged,
Before I start.

So tell me who can I respect?
I feel the leash around my neck.
As I find out there's shame,
In the game, (in the game).

We take from one another,
And never stop to wonder,
How it feels from the other side.
Well nothing lasts forever,
When stupid turns to clever,
Why are you surprised?

And I feel like... I'm caught outside the box.
And I feel like... I'm sleeping when I'm not.

(Looking for the real thing
Looking for the real thing)

We take from one another,
And never stop to wonder,
How it feels from the other side.
Well nothing lasts forever,
When stupid turns to clever,
Why are you surprised?

Little know it all (little know it all),
Ten bucks in my hands.
Little know it all (little know it all),
Don't cry, I understand.

You little know it all (little know it all),
Ten bucks in my hands.
Little know it all (little know it all),
Don't cry, I understand.

You'll never know it all...

nice little Iggy pop song that sums it nice for me,

I think the term actually implies not understanding that other people have "minds".In other words,that they think,feel,desire somthing that you dont.I think the "theory" is an over simplication of the process of the AS experience.I believe that they are "interpreting our "internal experience" based on our actions from their NT perspective,(something that I see happening a lot in NT theory of AS)Looked at from my AS experience it works more like this.....


I realize that other people have different thoughts,desires,feelings,etc.but then several things happen prior to my actions....


1)I dont read non-verbal communication instinctively but through intellectual process based on a life time of watching TV,reading books and interacting with people.The more of this I do,the better I become at "reading" people.However,this process can be hampered by many things....sensory-overstimulation,preoccupation with my own interests distracting me from staying "tuned" to their communication,sheer boredom of their communication about things I dont care about.

2)their thoughts,desires,feelings often seem very illogical to me.They dont follow a logical pattern and are harder to understand based on the way I process life.It's like learning a new math system that isnt based on 2+2=4.....the code is that when they use 2 the second time,it really represents our 3,so 2+2(actually a 3)=5.It's a system you can learn but takes extra steps to decode.

3)They lie much easier and are better at self-dellussion,so the process of decoding is complicated by intentional and unintentional miscommunication......ex.)smiling and saying "nothing is wrong",while clinching their fists and reaching for a blunt object to potentially hit me over the head.


The amazing thing is that we can read them at all,but the process can be done much beter in a one on one situation then in groups of people.Standing out-side the communication and simply observing can be a little easier(and interesting to me)then actually having to engage in communication while you are trying to process their communication.I dont do both things at once very well.

ryan2099
I agree with you on this, I have been confused about it too lately.
My experience is like having no filters for incoming information therefore it isn't processed effectively due to too much info, also because of the vast amount of info I suppress my reactions so am very 'flat' and then appear understimulated.
For me stimming is a way to occupy parts of my brain that would otherwise be struggling to focus on incoming info so I can concentrate on what I need to be doing, or just a way to block of the incoming onslaught so I can calm down.

only in the last month did my doctor say that she suspects I have aspergers, and within a few days i was wondering in what direction in percentage terms i was processing emotions, i.e. 10% meaning not good, or 150% meaning seeing too much, but sometimes i am very good at spotting what other people see, but then again what i spot i don't want to see, scares me, because i can't beleive the info i am seeing, and then again, when i drive a car and people don't expect me to have a lot of eye contact, things go along sooo smoothly and passengers think i am just a normal kiind of guy :s and i pick up on things the way other people do.

i'm pretty sure i am definately seeing more than the majority, and maybe part of my brain cannot process everything it sees, to the point it is overwhelming (if i give eye contact the way most people do, or the way they expect)

to me, the whole world is scary, mostly all appear to be on something (even when they are not), and mostly all appear to be simpletons, and to them i probably appear to be a simpleton due to my lack of social understanding. :s

there are aspergers sufferers who appear very good at writing stories, i can't ever imagine writing a story the way they do, i guess aspergers minds are balanced differently to each other, some see more than they should and can't cope, and others can't see everything they need, all the same it's out of balance.

i am coming to think that my Aspergers is genetically predisposed, vaccines (whether or not mercury is in them), pollution, further vaccines (with mercury in them) plus mercury amalgam fillings, and anti-biotics appear to have made my aspergers steadily worse, when lead-free petrol was withdrawn from sale, i appear to have had a better run of things, but 3 years ago i was given another vaccine, and now i am the same as before.

All throughout i never even knew all my other symptoms were linked in someway, i thought i was becoming a hypochondriac, but i only ever went to the doctor a few times about trivial things, i don't like the thought of taking any tablets when the body has evolved millions of years well enough on it's own.

Welcome to WP!

Tim

The trouble with a lot of literature and diagnostic lists (at least the ones that are online) is that they tend to be diagnostic criterion for children, not adults.

Mind blindness tends to be the inability to differentiate knowledge that you posess that others do NOT posess. I.E. the belief that if you know something, then ipso facto everyone else does too.

I have seen it used (at least on this site) in replace of "gesture blindness". I.E. the inability to decode non-verbal clues in interpersonal communication. From my experience and introspection about figuring out just what I do... blindness seems to fit it perfectly. Apparently NT's have what could be called a "lighning tally" of all the information coming from the non-verbal (and aspects of verbal) forms of communication. This "tally" indicated to them what is going on without having to conciously go over that information. Think of it as learning to ride a bike. You do it intellectually and then your brain "gets that hang of it" and you never really have to think about it again. It becomes "automatic". Aspies by diagnosis lack the ability to "automatise" that information. That is how I understand "gesture blindness"/"mind blindness".

...so there is no "intuitive" interperetation of all that information. Instead we have to go through it intellectually. Much like you describe in your original post.

Without getting wordy like I sometimes can since I have trouble sorting the "relevant" from the "irrelevant" details to form a concise summary of my intended message:

DITTO! You're not alone... Though frustrating to the NTs around us, just think of how many ways people like you and I think outside the box and how that kind of thinking leads to innovation. So another NT raises an eyebrow at us because we seem to "not have a clue" as we drown in endless possibilities and seemingly [to NTs] irrelevant interconnected thoughts in our endless web of associative memory and thinking. IMHO, they're the ones missing out on our unique, and unbridled perspective of the NT dominated world around us as they cling to the center of their circles, while we dash at the speed of light along the circumference, barely seeing the center, but surveying everything else around it.

Hope this makes sense!

~Ann

Too much information is accurate!

I had it explained to me, by this expert I’ve seen. It is not just to do with ToM it is to do with most of frontal lobe/executive.

Theoretically you can split it into at least three stages.

1. Input stage
2. Filter stage
3. Processing stage

The input stage is getting all the information from your sensor arrays. Everybody takes in a lot more information than they realise. You don’t specifically just notice the coffee cup on the table you take in everything in your peripheral vision indiscriminately. It is a lot of information and is has not been sorted yet.

The filter stage does just that, it removes information that is not relevant to what you want to use it for. Chances are there are a number of filter stages.

The next stage is the processing stage that is what takes the bits of information and interprets and processes them. It includes ‘working memory’ which is like a scrap book where you can work things out.

If the filter stage is not working properly, your ‘processor’ cannot cope with the information; because it figures it should be using some background information that is not relevant or does not have enough for the task. It looses the thread literarily. This is likely the most common form of confusion.

If the processing stage is not working it can not use the filtered information to think.

If the input stage is not working you can’t do either.

excellent, thanks for all the responses, and it makes me extra happy that they seem to match my understanding of myself, which should, in theory, help me handle situations better.

Learn all that you can about AS, you have nothing to be worried about. Try to go see a professtional about your condition.