Lack of Imagination

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Well, I also seem to lack depth perception, but I don't see how that could have any relation with imagination. I also don't see how any of these other skills would require imagination, except for maybe the judging distances thing, I was more referring to things such as rotating and reposistiong shapes, something I can do. Also, you bringing up humor brings me to another point. Do you find any enjoyment in reading novels?

I can do simple mental rotation tasks, but it's not my strong suit (by a long shot). It's a purely intellectual exercise, though. I understand intellectually what a shape consists of, so, as long as it's not too complicated, I can logically deduce what it would be like if it were rotated.

Generally speaking, I find very little enjoyment reading novels.

Hmm...well I definitely do not lack an imagination, and if anything I believe mine is overactive, so here is what I conclude:

Autism itself does not affect imagination. However, due to overlap with things such as Alexithymia and NVLD those with deficits in imagination may be more likely to be diagnosed with AS. Also, until I have evidence arguing otherwise, I say it's also more likey for those with overactive imaginations to be diagnosed with autism. Autism appears to target poles with pretty much any mental factor.

Until reading this thread I hadn't really associated imagination and spatial skills. I am reasonable at judging distances, speed etc if I am directly looking at something. However I am utterly useless navigating, probably because I can't hold an image of my environment in my mind. Unlike the stereotypical 'thinking in pictures' it is very hard for me to create pictures in my head.

I do however enjoy novels (mainly scifi and fantasy). In a way they to the imagination for me. I just follow along for the ride.

In response to this whole "imagination" = "pictures in head thing" thing.....

There's a bit of a difference between being able to "picture something" and being able to mentally manipulate said picture. Also, there's a difference between being able to accomplish the previous two and being able to generate pictures that are independent of previously acquired data.

Hence, you can look at something and "mentally" rotate it, but you may not be able to "hold" it in your head once you walk away. Personally, I can "picture" things just fine, and I can "create" images that have no relation to things I've seen previously, but I'm rubbish as manipulating the image in my head. Hence, I can "picture" what's going on in a novel, but I can't do "mental" arithmetic. I need to write things out.

However, good luck attempting to "measure" these abilities in autistic people.

The world look the same with one and two eyes for me too, yet I don't have depth perception problems. The brain naturally compensate monocular vision by deducing the depth through his experience of vision and various informations. A better way to know if you got depth perceptions problem would be to watch a 3D movie in cinema and see if you notice a difference; with a good 3D the difference is really obvious. (Though don't bring much really.)

I have a very good imagination.

As if it were this contentious proposal!



Yet all of these rightly fall under the heading of imaginative faculties.



So your imaginative faculties are somewhat uneven. What's the point?



Should the difficulty in measuring some cognitive functions stop us from hypothesizing about them? Do you understand that Kanner meant for his paper, Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact, to fly in the face of that difficulty?

The epigram for his paper, an excerpt from "Glimpses into Child Life" by Rose Zeligs:

To understand and measure emotional qualities is very difficult. Psychologists and educators have been struggling with that problem for years but we are still unable to measure emotional and personality traits with the exactness with which we can measure intelligence.

So your precious diagnosis, with which you identify so strongly as to inhabit this website, only came about as a result of men who were willing to push beyond these difficulties for the sake of the progress of mental health science.



Well naturally the world doesn't look radically different to most people when they shut one of their eyes, but they do lose some degree of depth perception. Compare to looking through a binocular vs. a scope, if you really lack depth perception issues. These differences are more pronounced at close/medium range, which is where most people spend the majority of their time focusing anyway.

I think stereographic perception plays more of a role at close range. It's harder to catch a ball using only one eye. Of course in some cases sucking at sports may not have as much to do with depth perception as lacking precise gross-motor control.

I can relate. I hated English for the same reason. I think having terrible writers block was more of an executive function problem than lack of imagination. I could come up with stories on my own free time. I just hated being forced to come up with something within the bounds of an assignment. I also had a general loathing for "projects" as I never felt like I had any ideas and things other people suggested always seemed stupid to me making me unmotivated.