So if AS people think in pictures, how do NT people think?

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I can really relate to the description of thought made by the OP, sort of a computer aided design system within ones mind. I have had this since I was a kid, although being educated as an engineer improved the structure and let me do more with it.

I have to in a way build a mental model piece by piece instead of starting with the whole. Seeing an individual features or parts is easy but how they relate to one another to make the whole takes longer. For the same reason I cannot see fine detail and the whole simultaneously.

I can see something deform under load, but would not see stress lines, although fluid flow and streamlines I could, but that's probably due to my discipline.

OP: I am curious how well can you draw in perspective by hand?
Personally, I don't very well. Also I like slipangle, very befitting someone who does allot of FEA

When I have to use an internal dialogue, (for things like writing here or reasoning out other people) it is cumbersome, talking out loud can actually speed it up a bit. If this is primarily how you think, how often are you without an internal monologue altogether?

I can draw well enough to communicate ideas, but I've preferred doing my own CAD to generate drawings and images. After years of self-taught Unigraphics work, one of my past employers put me along with all the other engineers through a Catia v5 class.

My writing has always been terrible, I've always found the inefficiency of human communication frustrating... What I write or say is never as complete as my thoughts, for example the first to phrases of this paragraph are meant to be tied together by the fact that I write poorly because I never wanted to spend the time to become good at writing or do it well, thus that thought would lead into the second thought... That and the fact that holding an audiences attention tends to decrease if I use enough words to actually convey my full train of thought, so either I'm rambling on or my thoughts sound very disconnected.

So before I start making it sound as if my opinion is that AS picture thought is superior to NT word thought (because the next stop for my train of thought was that a picture is worth a thousand words! ) I find the whole thing philisophically interesting.

Okay, so if you take this thought: AS thinking is more rationally based whereas NT thinking is more emotionally based. The thing is I don't think AS are incapable of emotion, I am capable of it, but somehow I find that when I follow my emotions the outcomes aren't what I intend whereas I have better luck with rational decisions. This problem doesn't seem to happen for NT people somehow.

If I may pose another question to ponder: Is there any characteristic of AS people that is absent in NT people or vice versa? Or is it more a matter of degree?

See, one of the tidbits I recall from Jr. high school health class is that there are basicly 2 body types, there is the shorter body type that tends to become muscular more easily, then there's the taller skinnier type that has a harder time become muscular than the shorter type. I think the taller type has some sort of like speed or agility advantages or something. Either could achieve what the other was able to more easily acheive, but that's the thing - certain things are more easy for one type than the other.

So what if it is similar neurologically between NT and AS?

Another thing we're "supposed" to do that I just plain don't. (I also don't look younger than I am, and so on). I think in words. Almost purely in words. My thoughts are like scrolling text.

I don't think entirely in words, but I do absolutely love and adore them. I have a fascination with them.

Good dissection^

Broadly, is any thought possible without a preceding emotion? I don't see how.

Every 'experience' is linked with "quality," bad quality evokes negative emotions, and good, conversely.

Making distinctions or choices," as to having to decide," would have a preloaded emotional bias to them either way.

Everyone thinks emotionally.

I don't think in words or pictures. I just think. As far as words go, I frequently hear short sentences repeated in my head over and over again but that's it. I don't see pictures or words and don't understand this at all with regard to thinking.

I mainly think in words (in other words, I talk to myself, most of the times it's a monologue). Sometimes i think in images that super-impose with what i really (lucky, they just long for a second or 2). However my thinking is extremely fast (too fast for me too say what i think), amd i've always been bilingual when talking to myself (spanish and english).

I also think in concepts, but for me 'think' and 'feel' are the same thing, except 'feel' has nothing to do with emotion - it's physical, because I feel what I think with my body.

In the necklace example - I 'feel' something around my throat.
No images, but I 'think/feel' in 3D.
If I'm thinking slowly, there are words, but it seems to be a translation process.


This is true for me as well, reactions like this tend to be complex and all-encompassing, but also involve physical sensations, reflex movement or even pain.

I think in pictures and words at the same time...much like a video with a narrator.
The "video" is in fragments like a mid- 90's music video but with words in the background instead of music...sometimes I "see" actual words in times new roman font. With numbers, I cannot remember them unless I see them. If I hear the numbers, I have to visualize them in order to remember them.

My mom (NT) says her thinking is circular...she will grab a thought, and then loop around again and grab anouther connection again and again until the loops get smaller and smaller until she gets to the point or the solution, or cause of something. She says this is the thinking she does when she is really trying to master something.

She says she thinks in terms of energy.

Interesting question.
I'm NT and I think in words when I'm thinking of social situations. I often think these through in my head, same with politics and issues affecting society I think the concepts through using words as arguments. When I'm going somewhere or fixing something mechanical or thinking about any spatial thing its images, specific ones. Similarly when I'm thinking about the data networks and firewalls and applications I work on at work I visualise the packets. I can always remember a face but seldom names.
I'm male and technical so I guess visually orientated.

As I've already said, I have different levels of thinking. I can think in words, pictures or words and pictures. I can also think physically everything that hurts.

I can switch to another level of conscient thoughts easily. I usually have three "active levels" (which I am aware of) : the first level is the one I concentrate on. Right now, it's a "speaking" level because I am writing. The second level is usually a song or a sentence which repeat itself over and over again. The third one is a picture level right now because it is always the opposite of the first one.

I can sometimes distinguish a "non sense" level or two, both verbal and visual, sending me nonsense

I only know one person who says it's normal and that she has this too...

I have Asperger's, and I think in just about every human sense- sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, sense of balance, sense of space, etc. I do think more in images than in any other medium, though, and often times the images are of words. Something weird about me is that I associate certain concepts with unrelated sensations. For example, the number 4 is always purple, 3 is almost always blue, and the color blue has a sharp smell and tastes kind of sweet.

Yes, I think I know what you mean - - likewise for myself. I am a logical thinker and contemplative. I do not consider myself emotive and I do not have the full range of emotions, but I do feel! And very acutely. Since my senses (and likely yours, along w/ other Aspies - I feel confident in asserting this) are intensely integrated then I know my feelings/sensations are very visceral in expression.

The concepts of sense, feel, and think may be considered as distinct, but there would be invariable overlap. Hope I did not contradict myself here Writing about the mechanics of thought can be tricky since definitions are murky. Thought form is dynamic, not static, and no matter how much I try to quantify, I'll reach the limits of definition.





Sure - - I see shades of meaning here and I'd not deny that one's (emotive?) opinion of another can play a role. I'd hope that I'd promote someone on their merit, not whether they are "popular" or that they do or do not invite me to their dinner parties. But, one's performance and character can be contingent upon if they are a like-able and generally nice/pleasant person; I cannot deny that.

Good point about the gossip issue - - If an employee, for instance, were saying hurtful and negative things about me behind my back, then that implies they are not of good character and probably not trustworthy! In which case, I'd be worried and could not, in good faith, promote a gossip who hurts people. On a personal level, I would be hurt. Even if I could not express that I was hurt.






For myself, I do not have much emotional control (dang it!)....I'd suspect this is an attribute of AS individuals too, generally. Quite like Spock, I pride myself on not acting emotionally, such as not lashing out at the store clerk because I'm having a bad day. But, within myself, I can quietly implode. If someone is bad to me, purposefully, then I can be quite brutal, if necessary.

Right, in that when browsing our forums there are plenty of hot-headed Aspies! Myself included, at times. I guess we might not be so coherent in how we express that. Even *if* we do have the full range of emotions (?), doubtful we can incorporate them as judiciously as our NT peers. In my opinion. For me, my emotions (?) go from o to 60, in a second; I tend to run 'hot' or 'cold.' I either feel it, or I don't. I either care, or I don't. I coined the phrase, "I profoundly don't care." I almost cannot verbally talk about emotiveness since I lack the vocabulary - this can be problematic, or at least different, since chatty/emotive talk amongst NTs is inherently awkward for me. I'll look down and say, "I don't know." Or just nod. Or say "OK." Or nothing.....just don't have the words in me.




Precisely. Profoundly true. I posted in another forum about this same matter - - I wrote that I can have, in private, screaming acute meltdowns, where I curl-up on the floor and cry so hard I am incoherent, until I'm faint. Conversely, my NT friend (female) revealed that when she is upset, she'll rent a chick-flick DVD, lay on the couch and eat bon-bons, then tell her husband of her worries - and she feels better. So, why is my way not as good as her way? Mine would be deemed "irrational" or worse, and hers is considered, by most, as fairly normal. Go figure.


Oh, about my opthamologist: Specifically, when he looked into my eyes, with instrument lenses, I thought he could literally 'read my mind!' because he told me he could. And I believed him! Looking at the 3D insects was separate, but I thought he could 'read' and know, from looking into my eyes, that I thought they were real. I'd suspected others could 'read thoughts' by looking into another eyes, and he directly told me he could - - whoa

Ah, the literal problem. When an NT says they know what you are thinking, they don't mean to suggest they've actually read your mind. They are suggesting that from the expression in your eyes they have a strong enough sense of what you are feeling about a subject, to make an assumption as to what you are thinking about it. If you are thinking something completely out of context from the last thing they said, or the current situation, then of course they have no actual idea of your real thought.

When someone says that to me, if the context is right and my reaction was right, I assume that yes, they do know. But if my mind really had wandered, or if I'm aware I have a thought inconsistent with my expression, then I clarify verbally ("actually, my mind just went somewhere else completely; sorry" or "funny thing is, I was actually thinking B.") We tend to assume we know what they just assumed they knew, and act accordingly.

But we don't really read minds

Not very often.

If I'm reading a book, the words from the book mostly (but not completely) replace it, as part of experiencing the story. But I'll still have some side shows running, relating the story to things from my own life, or looking for meaning beyond what is written.

It really contributes to insomnia

I do have many, many areas where I'm more AS than NT, but I think my thought process is pretty firmly NT, as are a few other areas of life for me. Still, who really knows ... there is such a mixture out there, with unique individuals.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 26 Sep 2010, 1:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Good paper, thanks LabPet for posting it. I have read it.

I know that in the AS community jokes have been made about the creation of a drug which causes the NTs to turn autistic for a time. It seems that maybe it is possible.

Snyder claims that savant skills can be induced for a time using rTMS (magnetic treatment of the brain) in NTs, what I would like to know is do the NTs change in the way that they deal with emotions and feelings when treated with the magnetic system.

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... l.pdf+html

I have no idea if Snyder is right or wrong.