Nonverbal cues in autistics-- a question

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Bodies can speak?!

*wraps body up with gaffa tape* Ha, try to speak now.

Strong definition, more psycho look.
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/pho ... l-book.jpg

Softer (possibly air brushed or something) more Autistic look:

http://new.rejesus.co.uk/images/area_up ... powell.jpg

in comparison to 'strong definition', more signs of 'general definition' emotion.
http://www.idphotographics.com/photos/f ... ces-00.jpg

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/200 ... otography/

If you look at the faces, bags under eyes, strong lines nose to mouth, smoother cheeks, some defined lines of forehead.

Lots of controlled use of emotion to wards people, but not a lot of laughter!

here's some Einstein a bit younger and a lot older pictures.



http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/7 ... SA000Z.jpg
http://www.papermag.com/blogs/Albert_Einstein_1947a.jpg

He's 41 in the picture on wikipedia, and getting on for 70 in the 1947 picture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

I have a colloquial posterior.

I became more concious of others on prozak, and had a really trippy experience where I could actually read other peoples body language, more fluently than they would have liked. You'd be amazed!

A mix of Ketamin and Kava Kava actually 'cured' me (in that I became selfish for the first time in my life), I wouldn't like it to be in any way permanent.

I say look at the 'faces' of older people, because it's a more permanent record of facial body langauge [or lack of] over time.

Botox and plastic surgery, by their mere existence, make this iffy, but it's a good idea.

I'm afraid I don't see what you're suggesting with those faces, though.

There in lies the second problem [I've learned to compensate], someone trained in body language / facial expressions may do though.

"Botox and plastic surgery, by their mere existence, make this iffy", It depends on the objective.

I picked people who I felt most probably didn't have augmented features. Less the jesus a like.

I'll see if I can highlight the difference I see, their somewhat subtle, if you haven't been looking at it for ages.

I suppose the other thing is, you could find an over 35s dating site (it's more accurate that way)
and give me a picture or 10 and I'll tell you what their profile says without looking (in a moderately general way, sometimes with a cut). And tell you the features and characteristics I've used in the pictures to say this.
(I'm better [more specific] with women since I hang around/identify with more women).

The Einesitne and the Psyco pictures are quite similar, but if you look for the depth/definition and 'harness' vs 'softness' of the lines on the face and firmness.
So the bags on the eyes of the more 'psycho' extend lower with more lines underneath them than Einstein.
So whilst they are both using the same kind of more 'unnatural' expressions, the psycho's are doing it with greater intensity, so more often or more unnatural to 'over manipulate people'.

Think snarling bull dog, maybe.

The guy laughing has a lot more 'crows feet' I think they are called and less soft cheeks etc... and generally more lines in general.

I'll see if I can find one of someone who's trying to be 'secretive' and 'controlling' (hiding behind something), they tend to have be like the laughing quy, but much more deep-set, but not 'saggy' like sun damage causes (often seen in elderly far-eastern women/men for instance)

"highlight the difference",
by running them through some image processing applications [like photoshop or gimp]

The options are to define them more with a filter or two, either by extenuating them or by giving them false colour, or both.
and possibly having a before and after that are over-layed.

There are differences in both degree and kind.

ruveyn

here are some smiles (may be touched up though!)

unnatural, (wrong muscle groups), using lower muscles groups too much, but not upper ones.

http://businessblogs.co.nz/files/2009/1 ... _woman.jpg

similar: also using eyes
http://www.cscahelp.org/Business-Woman.jpg

natural, notice lines between corners of nose and mouth, using upper muscle groups more.
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbvi ... -woman.jpg

uneasy, kind of trying not to laugh. (upper muscle groups in use again, but not much in eyes so more honesty)
http://www.mygoodlifesite.com/images/st ... 0woman.jpg

two more more natural one, second a bit posed.
http://www.janiceporter.com/images/busi ... e-suit.jpg
http://www.babusinesscapital.com/images ... -woman.jpg

OTT use of upper muscle groups, with eyes 'seductive'
http://www.ourvanity.com/images/busines ... -money.jpg

another unnatural one, again not much upper muscle group:
http://www.thefashioncompass.com/media/ ... _Woman.jpg

I think the tension caused by not using the upper muscle groups and lower ones together in a more natural way causes less softness and greater definition as time passes.

They look the same to me.

Ok, I'll do some stuff to pull out the differences, and possibly compleatly remove most of the facial features.
Say put the defining bits of to a square of blank background,
then do some stuff to bring the face back in.

(More crudely until I can see if you can notice the difference).

It may be a handy training tool for people too, that is so long as 'you' or 'someone who previously couldn't' can learn to spot the differences.


I think strimming and ticks are to two of the more common traits.
(But I tend not to do those in public or if I'm more focused)
Autism is generally listed as like Schizophrenia but not meeting the diagnosis criteria (psychosis), though the problem is there's a kind of self fulfilling delusion which can be like psychosis but only temporary that Autistic people can have. And if they med you for life (not recommended by quite a lot of people, only treating an episode is recommended in general), you could just end up a thoughtless cabbage. 'The meds working' cancels out any kind of requirement for diagnosis criteria being met. and the meds are like opiates (but worse a chemical lobotomy), so they mostly work for anything.

So the main problem is that Autism is like Schizophrenia, pretty much everything an Autistic has matches Schizophrenia and visa-versa.

Anyway, back to what I was saying.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AnneCorwin# ... 1maPzTJUzw I asked an NT to give her impressions of this video. I also evaluated it myself based on the style of body language with which I'm most familiar.

For those of you who want to watch it yourself without being biased by others' observations, I'll stick some stuff in here in the meantime, but click quickly because if you automatically scan the whole post, you're likely to see it and read it anyway.

So, anyone want to tell me what this looks like to you, based on the system of body language that you're most comfortable with? I'd be very interested.

(It's fair game, right? I mean, it's posted publicly online.)

If you do give your opinion, I'd also like to know whether or not you're on the spectrum, what your exact diagnosis is, any other neuro-weirdness and any other information you'd care to give.

Now, if she were to confirm or deny what I think about it, that would be useful, but I don't know if she's on this site.

Here's the evaluation of it.

So to an NT, she looks "closed" and she "talks tight, she's not engaging," she's "factual" and her eye contact is "off" unless she's addressing a group.

My own evaluation of her (assuming that she uses my style of body language; I don't know whether she does) is that she's answering a question that, though it doesn't appear to give her great delight, has not bothered her. She appears to be mildly happy, unrelated to the question itself, which she seems to be having no more difficulty answering than is to be expected for having to come up with an explanation of something out of the blue. She seems not to precisely know what to do with her body to give the intended communication in NT language, but not precisely awkward, either. I could be biased here because I know that she says she's speaking to family, but she seems to like the people she's addressing.

her movements are very rhythmic to her thinking and answering the questions, also smiling, in an open honest way when talking.

mouth more closed when talking about macadamia [expensive] so I'd say not so good for instance.

Anne is on this site sometimes but she doesn't come around all that often.

For whatever it's worth, she and I are... well, a friend of mine has a theory that somehow the world screwed up and instead of putting us in parallel universes as alternate-reality versions of each other, we got stuck in the same universe by mistake. And her boyfriend swears we were separated at birth. People who know one of us well, and meet the other of us, are generally amazed and say it's completely uncanny. (And that's just cognitively, let alone the parallel directions our lives have taken. Right down to things like both of us freaking out Scientology recruiters on the campus of a school we were both going to, within probably 15 minutes of each other, but without meeting or knowing it until ten years later.)

And yet, I get the sense that people who know us superficially wouldn't see the depth of the similarities. We're not sure what exactly makes people think that. We have suspicions that there are a very small number of differences in the way we look and act that are very subtle. But that those differences are... I don't know the word for it. The kind of differences that other people look for, blow out of proportion, and seem to see as huge differentiating factors when they're actually very superficial and almost meaningless. While the deeper similarities are then ignored. Whereas, I've also been in situations where there's someone who is absolutely nothing like me. But we have a few superficial things in common that are also that same sort of thing that are different between me and Anne -- superficial traits that are given way too much weight by people who don't know what they're looking at. And so I've been constantly compared to people who have virtually nothing in common with me, and seen as totally different from people who could be my brother or sister given all the deeper similarities.

I'd be curious whether you (after looking at lots of videos of both of us, which I'm figuring you did to come up with the videos you linked) noticed the similarities or whether they were obscured by those superficial-yet-standing-out traits.

Also, one thing I'd caution about reading my body language, is that you have to actually be around me for a long period of time to get a full sample of it. The videos I've posted show me at very specific points in time. I wish I could post more stuff but my motor impairments have made it much harder to get videos done lately. (And also my motor impairments have to be factored in to any understanding of my body language. I do have a movement disorder that has an effect on things.)

If you want one more piece of my body language, although not much of one, you can go here:

http://youneedacat.tumblr.com/post/1694661090/

That only really shows my hand moving and in very dim lighting, the rest of my body is in shadow. What that particular movement often means, is sort of... like when I'm sitting around doing nothing in particular, and my hand just starts going like that, in a rhythm that fits with whatever I'm perceiving of the world, and helps me understand and feel connected to that world, and yet isn't a deliberate thing. It feels to me kind of like... the way windchimes move around in the wind, my fingers move around in the "wind" of incoming sensory information, and looking at the way my fingers move says something about the way that information was going. It's a very calm and relaxed feeling, reminds me of a cat sitting on a window in a sunbeam watching the world go by.

What I've found in observing tons and tons and tons of autistic people, is that there are sort of... "groupings" of types of body language. Like, there's this one guy I know, and I understand his body language to a degree, because it resembles my brother's. And my brother's body language is nothing at all like mine. Meanwhile, there's an entire group of people where their body language and my body language are mutually comprehensible and have many similarities. We seem to be a minority among autistic people (and we tend to share many other cognitive/perceptual traits beyond just body language) but we do exist. There are forms of body language that are incredibly common, and then forms like mine that are much rarer but not unheard of.

What I've found with people whose body language and cognition resembles mine, is that we can read each other to a depth that is astonishing and can feel invasive at first, although it's balanced out by the fact that generally if we know enough about the person to read them that well, we're going to respect them enough not to use that information against them. It's a very intense and emotionally intimate kind of experience to be so thoroughly comprehended and comprehending with another person. Especially after a lifetime of not experiencing anything like it. As I was just describing in another post, it can cause amazing experiences, like... we'll be there resonating with each other already. And then we get enthusiastic about something. And the joy ricochets back and forth between us, intensifying as it goes.

And in that situation, the socialness... it's like being alone. It's exactly like being alone, only with two of you. Because, I don't know how to explain this exactly. Normally when I socialize with someone, it's like each of us has a structure of ourselves. And if you superimpose the structures on each other, there are areas of obvious dissonance. And when those dissonant areas meet, there can build up a sort of tension or buzzing/vibrating or anxiety or something, I don't know what to call it. But when there are few to no areas of dissonance, then that tension isn't there, and it's just like being by yourself only you're not. And then your defenses don't have to be up. And you can just be yourself and the other person will understand. It's not an experience I ever expected to have in my life. There are many, many rewards to building bridges between people who are very different from each other. But there are also rewards that come from someone who shares the same body language and cognitive style to the extent that you rarely have to explain anything and all these interesting experiences can happen. And it's very "quiet" because you're not bumping up against all the dissonant edges and stuff, and yet intense in its own ways. It's hard to describe if you haven't experienced it, but if you have, it can be wonderful.

There are also of course degrees of similarity and difference, it's not like the categories are totally discrete. Like I have a friend Joel, who is quite similar in many ways to me. But he's also quite similar to people who are not all that similar to me. The same way green can be just as similar to yellow as it is to blue. Whereas Anne and I are like nearly-matching shades of (for instance) blue, where we've found if someone's similar to one of us they're just about equally similar to both.

But anyway, back to body language. I wish I had a way to categorize the different kinds of body language I've seen. I'm very sensitive to movement patterns in a person. So I store movement patterns in my head very easily, and when I see someone who reminds me of someone else, it's quite obvious and I notice it right away. I find that autistic people's movements are easier for me to understand the source of than nonautistic people's, but only in an overall way, there are of course exceptions on both sides. Also many other kinds of neuro-atypical people are easier for me to read than typical people. I can usually only read body language well when my ability to understand regular language is turned off -- it's mostly an either-or thing for me, either I can understand body language, or I can understand words, rarely both. (It's easier for me to understand both if the body language type is similar to mine.)

And when the body language is similar enough for me to read well? One thing that I notice a lot of, is this thing where for many of us, our unusual movements and stuff are actual reactions to our physical surroundings and our sensory understanding of them. So understanding each other's movements ends up meaning (to greater and lesser degrees depending on familiarity) understanding what the other person is aware of. Of course that's mostly true for those of us whose movements are greatly influenced by our sensory awareness. But it's a greatly overlooked aspect of autistic people's nonverbal communication (even when not intended to communicate, it does communicate an awful lot). I've also noticed similar things in people with other cognitive atypicalities, even people with dementia. (And the "people like me" thing body-language-wise isn't restricted to autistic people, I've also met "people like me" with intellectual disabilities, certain forms of epilepsy, dementia, etc.) There just seems to be a sort of person whose awareness comes out in a very physical manner, even if they aren't doing a lot of unusual movements, it's just somehow written on their body. I was quite delighted when a viewer of one of my videos noticed my hand movements matched the audio, but they can also match visual or tactile information as well. It's like a weird thing where sensory information gets translated into kinesthetic forms.

And I will shut up now, being wiped out and probably beginning to repeat myself due to enthusiasm and exhaustion. The topic of nonverbal communication in autistic people is very interesting to me, and I've been informally studying it for the past ten years or so.