So here is the thing. I am currently reading Temple Grandin's book, Animals in Translation and am finding the book fascinating.  Temple  has a lot of accumulated technical knowledge relating to brain studies and a lot of what she mentions in passing may actually be quite relevant to recognizing the differences between neurotypical, aspie and autist. Anyone want to discuss some of it?

Here is just a one of her observations.  Neurotypical people often say autisitc children  "live in their own little world".  She believes the same can be said about neurotypical people. She likens it to how dogs can hear a whole register of sound humans can't. In essence, she suggests autists register a whole visual world normal people can't or don't.

I would agree with this.

She  goes on to say neurotypical people are abstractified in their sensory perceptions.  In essence, rather than see the actual reality, we see our ideaof things vs. autists who see the actual details as they exist in reality.

Dpending on your perspective one could say thee autistic brain process either fails to filter out irrelevant information / or  brings more raw data to consciousness than neurotypical brain processing.

I'm personally not sure what autists and aspies bring to consciousness is any more real than what neurotypical do.  It almost seems to me like autists see the details but some times miss the whole picture and neurotypicals see the whole picture but miss the details with neither seing the true reality of the actual details within the context of the whole picture.

Temple believes the difference lies in the fact that autists are visual thinkers.  So I ask.  Do you see your ideas as pictures, words, what? Are you a visual thinker?

As a neurotypical I have no idea how my mind processes information to conclusion. When someone says "dog" to me, I've no idea how my mind goes about making its connections to point of recogonition of concept. The process itself is in essence hidden from my consciousness.

Are you as aspies/autists, like Temple aware of your thought process?

I've probably put way too much in this one thread at start, but do with it what you can.

my brain is only looking for relevant information and doesnt really comprehend very well the irrelavant

Its why I sometimes have to ask two or three times for people to repeat things

If I cant visualise something I cant do it successfully

The NT's "own little world" is full of illusions, but it's obviously shared by most or even all of them. I think Temple just wants to show here how patronizing that term is.

I for one know that I sometimes cannot see the whole picture, only the details. I'm overwhelmed by the number of details I see ...

Only some autists are visual thinkers. I get pictures, sometimes, but even more often I think in words - which I cannot connect to pictures - or in numbers.

I very often get associations and only sometimes am able to reconstruct where they came from.

Years ago I sometimes heard people say that they couldn't think if they didn't know language. I never understood this, and now I know why.

My thinking is a mixture of visual and words. If I didn't have words I would just think visually. One of the things I notice about autists is that they often stumble over words - like they are searching an inefficient database for words to match their visual thoughts.

I am not a visual thinker.  Temple Grandin's shininess does not affect that.

conLang wrote "I am not a visual thinker.  Temple Grandin's shininess does not affect that."

Could you explain the meaning of your second sentence please?

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=sea...00&bih=732

I'm somewhat a visual thinker, but I mostly think with vocalized words in my head. No, nothing relating to Schizophrenia or other Psychotic disorders. I don't hear random voices conversing with each other or a voice judging my actions or such.

Hadn't thought about it before, but I can relate to this I sometimes talk things through in my head as well when things require a decision process. Recognition process not so much.

I am not a visual thinker.  I believe both anecdotal testimony and what little
evidence is we have indicate that humans developed language as a means of
productive thinking (beyond the 'hungry; eat' level).  I am convinced that the
expression of concepts vs mere sensations & perceptions requires some
form of codifying thoughts.  This is the definition of language. Assuming I am
not overlooking/misinterpreting anything, Q.E.D.
thoughtfully,
kullervo

Humans developed language as a means of communicating.  The words can't exist without the thoughts to give them shape and direction.

First, a quick one sentence rant—this g-dd✪mned f!?Zing zero second time limit
simply has got to go!!!!!!!
I meant to begin that I agree w/ Shnoing's abv post and then amplify on it but
had zero μsec left to insert the above sentence.  Why is this post function so stingy
w/ edit time?
Why don't we have a show of hands about this over on the 5 min raves thread?
Sorry to get so far off topic.
Still mad,
k—

This post was last modified: 10-25-2012 09:56 AM by kullervo.

ConLang, your post on thoughts, communication and lingo came in while I was
out to rant.  I think we are getting into one of these chicken-and-egg things.  To
steal a line from the musical, "Oklahoma" of some years ago: "like a horse and
carriage, you can't have one w/o the other."
kullervo

Think of all the times you know what you want to say and can't find the words.

I am a process thinker.  I do tend to be more of a visual thinker sometimes but my memory is not photographic.  

It is not impossible for an autistic person to learn to block out some stimuli when they are focused on a task.  However I find that I can get overloaded and melt down from too much stimulus when in a new situation, place or learning a new task.