Diamonddavej wrote:
I believe that the experiment was fundamentally flawed. People with autism can have intense focus and attention. I suspect that when the autistic participants were asked to look at the cross on the screen, the they stared at it so intensely, their mental focus prevented them from daydreaming.
NT’s can’t focus their attention as intensely at autistic, thus NT’s minds wandered and daydreamed during the “boring” task of staring at the cross on the screen.
I’m sure people with autism daydream allot and more so then NT’s. But I accept the possibility that our daydreams are asocial, we dream about our special interests intensely, with great focus e.g. Minerals, Busses, Astronomy, Linux or what ever. Such daydreams are asocial and devoid of social emotions etc. Such daydreaming could use different, logical brain centres. NT’s seem to daydream about people, friends, relationships, all sorts of social issues.
I for one was surprised at the difference between my sleeping dreams and an NT friend’s dreams. I very rarely see other people in my dreams. I dream of places, architecture and environments. My NT friend always dreams about people, friends, social issues.
Thus, I think the experiment was flawed. Autistic’s do dreams but we dream differently (asocial) with perhaps different parts of our logical brains.
Diamond Dave
I like your argument here. I have to say though that in my particular case actually having to focus and harness my brain is so incredibly rare that I take notice anytime I feel compelled to. Think about it, when's the last time anything you did required any real brainpower from you.