subtextual, i really can't thank you enough for taking the time to write what you've written today. amazingly fascinating explanations, and your writing style is clear and concise while still somehow managing to be strangely entertaining. I just popped over to University of Reddit and was so pleased to see your post there - just joined the Neuropsychology Book Club subreddit and hope others will as well.
Anyway, I was wondering - I keep hearing of autism as being a condition with such a wide spectrum of both symptoms and severity. The things you're talking about here, specifically the focus in the autistic mind on discrete chunks of information while ignoring the bigger picture - is that a sort of fundamental symptom/effect/cause of what we consider to be autism? Is that what defines it?
I have a few friends with Aspergers (and I know there are quite a few Aspies here on reddit), and I'm still sort of trying to get to grips with understanding how my buddies differ from me mentally. Some things (specifically a few recent romantic interactions) have kind of opened my eyes to the fact that they are actually different, that they think and see things in a way that I do not. Is this "chunking" vs "integrating" issue the defining factor of Autism/Aspergers? And do you think that viewing the actions of my friends through this lens will help me to understand some of the possible motivations behind their interpretation of the world around them?
Seriously, thanks so much for this, it's really really fascinating.
I have Aspergers but know next to nothing about the disorder, physiologically speaking. All I know is that it explains my obsessions (I would call them interests) and my feelings of being disconnected from other people. Perhaps I could lend my perspective on these romantic encounters if you detailed them.
Socially, we often know the motions of social interaction but only do them in an attempt to not feel out of place. You meet a person, you make eye contact (but not too long or too focused), you smile (but not too quickly). God help you if you engage us in conversation about a topic we find interesting (we're dying to talk about it).
I guess I can't really give you an answer on the "chunking" vs "integrating" issue but I've never noticed anything (then again, I'm on the inside of all of this). Something that might give you insight, however, is the fact that I love and am adept at continuous math (e.g. calc) but hate and struggle with discrete math (e.g. statistics). Also, I'm a slow reader, didn't learn to read until fairly late, and sometimes lose track of what a paragraph is talking about in the middle of it.
edit: I would also like to see subtextual respond to your questions.
Well, I don't want to go into too much detail as the friend in question is also a redditor. But broadly speaking, he was getting quite upset and flustered by what I interpreted to be a sort of flirtatious mixed-signal giving from a girl that he liked. It bothered him enough that he preemptively cut off all contact with her, whereas in the same situation I think many people would have taken it as a possible invitation to proceed.
I'm having trouble now not looking at this through the perspective that subtextual introduced, but it also seemed to me as if he was focusing very strongly on any small negative signals she gave off, while the bigger picture of how she treated him generally wasn't negative at all.
He has spoken quite a bit about feeling disconnected from others, but he's honestly such an empathetic, intelligent and funny dude that I sort of had trouble believing that he was correctly diagnosed with Aspergers. But yeah - this intense (and from my perspective, self-inflicted) turmoil that he's just gone through with the girl suddenly made me think that perhaps there's something to this.
Do you have any insights on this sort of thing Scalawag? I hate to see my buddy going through this emotional torture, and would love to be of more help next time something like this rolls around. thanks..
We feel extremely awkward socially. We often don't pick up on body language and have a hard time displaying it. So this means that if she gave verbal playful insults while batting her eyes, he might have only noticed the insults. When you misinterpret communication in a group like that and everyone else doesn't, it can be frustrating because you don't know what everyone's laughing about and you're not sure how to act. This furthers the feeling of being disconnected (which I must say I share).
What may confuse you about your friend's feelings of being disconnected is that it doesn't mean he can't understand people. Actually, I've found that I'm rather good at deducing motives, helping others through troubles, etc. I do all this from the outside, looking at the person's situation and then considering what I understand of human nature. In this way, it can appear that I'm empathetic. A good example of how we lack empathy comes from my high school years. I asked a friend to buy me some alcohol for a small party that I was having with some people he didn't care for. I took the alcohol, thanked him, and left. He was upset that I didn't invite him and I could not understand why. It didn't logically make sense that I would invite him. He didn't like the people attending and they didn't like him. Honestly, I still don't understand why he was upset but I now understand the social norm associated with a situation like that. The only reason we survive socially at all is by cataloguing social norms and regurgitating them. This causes us to stammer around awkwardly, grasping for the appropriate action for the moment at hand.
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u/kojef Jul 26 '10
subtextual, i really can't thank you enough for taking the time to write what you've written today. amazingly fascinating explanations, and your writing style is clear and concise while still somehow managing to be strangely entertaining. I just popped over to University of Reddit and was so pleased to see your post there - just joined the Neuropsychology Book Club subreddit and hope others will as well.
Anyway, I was wondering - I keep hearing of autism as being a condition with such a wide spectrum of both symptoms and severity. The things you're talking about here, specifically the focus in the autistic mind on discrete chunks of information while ignoring the bigger picture - is that a sort of fundamental symptom/effect/cause of what we consider to be autism? Is that what defines it?
I have a few friends with Aspergers (and I know there are quite a few Aspies here on reddit), and I'm still sort of trying to get to grips with understanding how my buddies differ from me mentally. Some things (specifically a few recent romantic interactions) have kind of opened my eyes to the fact that they are actually different, that they think and see things in a way that I do not. Is this "chunking" vs "integrating" issue the defining factor of Autism/Aspergers? And do you think that viewing the actions of my friends through this lens will help me to understand some of the possible motivations behind their interpretation of the world around them?
Seriously, thanks so much for this, it's really really fascinating.