The Colour Spectrum and The Autism Spectrum

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pluto
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Age: 63
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Location: Paisley,Scotland UK

17 May 2011, 2:37 pm

I've recently been reading about colours and the perception of them by different cultures,and it got me thinking about the comparison to the way that Autism is perceived.
Here are 2 questions a) "Is ''Neurotypical' the optimum state of the human mind,as opposed to Autism ? "
b) "Is blue a colour ?"

If we think the obvious answer is 'Yes' to both questions,then it may come as a surprise that to millions of people around the world,
blue is not regarded as a distinct colour ! This revelation about the colour spectrum got me thinking about how the Autism spectrum can be looked at in a different light as well.
The main group of people who do not see 'blue' are the 280 million+ speakers of Russian.To them,what we would call shades of blue,they regard as being 2 separate and distinctly different colours,Siniy (dark blue) and goluboy (light blue).
The perception of the colour spectrum gets even more thought-provoking,when we consider that some cultures have no definite
distinction between what we call blue and green.The most notable are some Native Americans (apparently the word 'toto' is used by the Sioux in Dakota to cover blue and green).
In research conducted in the late 19th century,it was found that some cultures in Africa didn't even distinguish between yellow,green and grey,calling all 3 of them by the same word.
The main point I take from all this,as there is no definitive distinction between colours,likewise there isn't really one between
'Neurotypical' and 'Autistic' either.The important thing is to try and see things from each other's perception as much as possible,rather than be swayed by generalisations.


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