People pointing at things

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I have that problem sometimes, usually with people I don't know well.

Yes I think hard and they say why is it so hard...

I am glad I am not alone in this.

I'm thinking this has to do with all those damn details. We see everything therefore singling out one thing is a much bigger task than it is for them without some sort of qualifiier to make it clear.

If someone says something vague like 'Look at that!" and points, I know I'd be left surveying the entire scene unless something ultra obviously out of place popped up - like an alien spaceship or a two headed dog or something. If you've never seen a mini fridge before what frame of reference would you have to recognize it? All those mundane things that most people don't even notice during their day are always in our view being actively processed. They have no clue what that is like. It's like trying to point out a single bee in a swarm. I see that swarm of bees as a collection of hundreds of individuals - they see a single mass with little consideration for the individuals.

I used to own a mini-fridge, actually. What he pointed at was in a box and smaller than the fridge I had. Plus I had to filter out irrelevant details like "Why would he point at my water bottle and say 'his fridge?'" like you said.

In an episode of the recent PBS series "The Human Spark", there was a bit about an experiment tracking the eye movements of people on the spectrum when viewing a film clip of someone pointing at one painting on a wall full of paintings. Neurotypical people followed the gesture to the correct painting while the autistics did not.

The whole episode is interesting, but the relevant bit is in the last 1/3 of the program:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/humanspark/epis ... isode/418/

I DO ask them and they look at me like i'm stupid and repeat "Get me a pack of Marlboros." THERE ARE LIKE A BILLION F--KING KINDS!! ! And then THEY get all irritated when I grab one at random and it isn't what they wanted

That explains the time when my mother and aunts took me to a Jackson Five concert when I was five years old. We were all seated high up in the arena and could barely see the performers.

My mother and aunts kept pointing down to the Jacksons on stage telling me, "There's the Jackson Five, look!" And I couldn't figure out what they were pointing at even though they were probably dancing and singing.

Also, a few months ago when I had some medical tests done, the nurses pointed out the room I had to go in saying, "Just go to that room with the blue sign." I might as well have been blind because I still couldn't see it even though it was right down in front of me.

Just today my mother was holding a banana peel while pointing to the garbage-can which I did not understand.

Her favorite line to me- "If it was a snake, it would have bitten you".

My mom used to say "If it had teeth, it would bite." She said it to my brothers too.


I remember last time I went to the doctor office for my son's check up, the nurse told me the door to my left and I couldn't figure out which one. So I decided I would point. I pointed to the room I was going buy and she goes "the next one with the blue..." whatever she said. I looked and pointed and she said "there" and I went in.

You meant at some point in the 54 minute video you linked or the last third of the video you linked?

Oops! I should have re-watched that to make sure it was the right one. While the video I linked does have a fascinating bit with Alan Alda in an MRI while doing the Sally-Ann test at about minute 40, it wasn't the relevant link.

What I thought I was linking you to was a clip from the work of Dr. Ami Klin at Yale, who tracked the gaze of autistics and non-austistics watching the movie "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". Googling around shows me several reports about it but I can't find the exact one I saw with the pointing! Sorry to be less than helpful.

OP's question is very interesting to me... One of the screening questions for autism at 16-24 months is "does the child look where you are pointing?" Mirroring such actions at this age is expected, lacks of it shows a communication/social skills deficiet, which is 2/3rs of the diagnosis of autism.