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J87
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09 Mar 2013, 5:30 am

A simulation has been created to show what it is like when people with autism experience sensory overload.

Here is the link:

http://gamejolt.com/games/strategy-sim/auti-sim/12761/

What do you think about it?



whirlingmind
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09 Mar 2013, 5:54 am

Funnily enough I just read about this yesterday here: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 25244.html

The picture simulation in that article is nothing like I see IRL. I don't know if it's supposed to just make the viewer feel like their brain is seeing everything in millions of dots to simulate how much detail we see but it doesn't resonate with me.

I didn't see the game in your link because you have to download an application which I didn't want to (PC slow enough without downloading extra stuff that I won't use for anything else) so I don't know how the game views.


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J87
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09 Mar 2013, 6:11 am

I didn't have to download an application I just scrolled down and the game loaded.

I'm not sure what to make of the game. Instead of things getting sketchy like in the game, everything for me in real life gets clearer and clearer until things get too focused and almost fuse into one image. Having said that, playing the game made my anxiety levels go right up and memories of past social experiences came flooding back.



whirlingmind
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09 Mar 2013, 6:18 am

OK, had another go and it did play (don't know why it told me I'd have to download an application :? )

It's not bad, except the grainy effect is not something I experience/see. I do see peoples' faces, in fact if you look at Intense World Theory about experiencing the world that explains it well. Not seeing peoples' faces would mean seeing less detail and I see more detail not less. It simulated the overwhelming feeling well in me! I started to feel panicky when watching it.


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InKBlott
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09 Mar 2013, 6:01 pm

J87 wrote:
A simulation has been created to show what it is like when people with autism experience sensory overload.

Here is the link:

http://gamejolt.com/games/strategy-sim/auti-sim/12761/

What do you think about it?


If you look at the fuzzing-out of the visuals as being symbolic of Being Overwhelmed so that one has less attention available to pay to the visuals due to so much of it going to the the audio, rather than a literal representation of what one sees, then it captures my experience rather nicely. I often find myself moving to the periphery of social situations in order to attain some relief and get back to normal levels.



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09 Mar 2013, 6:15 pm

That's fairly realistic. I don't experience hypersensitivity as intensely as some, but I do get it, and when I moved towards the center of the playground, as others have said, I started to panic, and hyperventilate. I saw the grainy effect as representative of what happens to me when I get affected by it, where my vision begins to unfocus, and lights become blinding. I swear heaven is a shady tree away from everything else...

I have never understood how NTs can stand to live in a world like that, with five hundred different conversations blending into white noise and little girls shrieking shrilly for no reason... Maybe someone should make an NT-sim.



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09 Mar 2013, 6:52 pm

I don't think it's supposed to literally show what we experience, but to give NT's a similar experience of over-stimulation and distress. It seems like a good effort but doesn't seem extreme enough or stressful enough to me (although I'm not an NT and therefore not the target audience).

EDIT: I guess I'll try to explain what overstimulation literally is like for me... things become brighter, my head hurts, noises become louder but also more incoherent, I get a flight-or-fight response and a weird achy tense feeling in my muscles, I can't put a complete thought together, my IQ is probably halved.



Random42
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09 Mar 2013, 9:14 pm

Nonperson wrote:
I don't think it's supposed to literally show what we experience, but to give NT's a similar experience of over-stimulation and distress. It seems like a good effort but doesn't seem extreme enough or stressful enough to me (although I'm not an NT and therefore not the target audience).

EDIT: I guess I'll try to explain what overstimulation literally is like for me... things become brighter, my head hurts, noises become louder but also more incoherent, I get a flight-or-fight response and a weird achy tense feeling in my muscles, I can't put a complete thought together, my IQ is probably halved.

Exactly. Not sure how you would make a simulation that exactly matches sensory overload.