too many trees to see the forest...

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hi everybody,
this is my first post in the forum...

I've read somewhere about the AS trait of details-oriented thinking, as opposed to the way in which NT's tend to see things in general ideas. That seems to describe the way in which I think - as a matter of fact, i sometimes think it's so extreme in me that everything i understand never fit to a global picture, so that a new detail would change the whole concept I'd have. That's quite frustrating...
So, do you think it's something ingerent in AS, or just a quirk?

The theory is from Uta Frith, and it is called Weak Central Coherence. Essentially, it means that autistic people see the all elements of the environment around them as equally important, there is no special or increased attention paid to important or less important parts of the environment.

So imagine an NT a forest, the NT sees one red tree and ignores the millions of other green trees. The NT gets the gist or overall idea of the problem, a bit like a cartoon caricature.

Albert Einstein

But an autistic in a forest sees all the tress at the same time, no tree is any less or more important then any other. To understand the environment, whether a scientific problem or social situation, the autistic must construct the problem brick by brick from the bottom up. Only when the entire forest in reconstructed in mind, can the autistic understand the problem.

I have this issue too, when I try to figure out people, I have to remember everything they said to me, every little fact, and only then when I have all the facts in my head, only then can I attempt to understand them. Yes, it can be quite time consuming, and every little clue is used and any newly discovered clue messes up the hypothesis.

However, this kind of highly detailed, bottom up, thought process can provide great scientific insight...

A page from Albert Einstein's Note Book from 1909

Last edited by Diamonddavej on 22 Mar 2007, 8:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Fairly inherent, I'd say.
I personally love insanely tedious work that drives others completely insane.
Like algebra. And dichotomous keys.
When people talk, I find myself latching onto details that they mentioned, and think obsessively about that, rather than what they're saying.

Oh, and welcome to WP.

Same here.

Is it weird for an aspie to be terrible at math?

i think its impossible to see every tree in the forest. but that will never stop me from loving it

I don't know. You'd have to do a survey...
It's just that the aspies who have memorized pi to 200 places are considered more 'geeky' and thus given more attention, than the aspie who reads Sartre and Chaucer for fun.
Being good at math is just less socially acceptable, and thus more focused on by the NTs. There are plenty of aspies who I'm sure cannot divide for their lives.

Not all aspies are good at math.

Math is painstaking for me. I can do it, but I can almost literally feel the proverbial smoke coming out of my ears. It makes my brain hurt. And I can only do it if I am able to focus on it completely, to the exclusion of all else around me. I need utter silence, and preferably no other people around me (if there ARE other people around, they must be completely engrossed in their OWN activity, as I will be distracted if I think they are watching me or about to say something). I enter a sort of extremely high-stimulus trance – I hold my pencil in a vice-grip, I barely blink, my heart rate increases and I take much shallower breaths. When I finish the problem, I feel this strange sort of rush, and sometimes I even feel slightly dizzy (probably from the shallow breathing). During the problem, if someone talks to me, or if anything distracts me in any way, the trance is shattered and I have to start all over. If I get partway through the problem, or near the end, and discover that I’ve made a mistake, it’s almost impossible for me to recover. I have no choice but to put it away and look at it again later.

As you can imagine, this is incredibly draining, both physically and mentally. It’s for this reason that I completely shy away from math, even though I think I could be really brilliant at it. This sucks because I am completely and utterly fascinated by physics, I just can’t get my head around all the math. It just requires way too intense a focus, probably so much so that it would actually be considered physically unhealthy.

Edit to add: I should probably mention that I think my ability for math is based more on rote procedure than actual, true understanding (with some exceptions, like I understand how .3 is equal to 1/3, though I can’t remember the procedural steps for multiplying and dividing fractions and decimals to save my life). The actual meanings behind some advanced trigonometry and geometry concepts are somewhat completely over my head, though I can work through the procedures needed to obtain a correct answer. Like I still don’t understand where the hell Pi came from, or how anyone could ever have figured it out in the first place, but I know how to use it to make calculations. Same with all that sine, cosine, and tangent crap.

I was always good at calculus, algebra, and statistics, because they only involve simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. But bigger problems still make my head hurt.

Last edited by Erilyn on 23 Mar 2007, 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Einstein wasn't good at math either. He made algebra mistakes. I think Frith is missing a key point for many of us with AS. I can take in every tree in the forest AND see the important trees as well, including other trees that some people might miss because I have a superior ability for pattern recognition.

We have personalities as well. Not all of us enjoy detail work. I don't and would be perceived by others as more of a "big picture" person because I can sift through all the facts and sort out the BS very quickly. I'm inclined to think that her theory of lack of central coherence refers to processing people, not information.

I do, however, absorb a LOT of infomation about anything I'm truly interested in. I don't miss the "big picture" when it comes to a body of information.

I think if you were taught the key words to listen for, you could master it fairly easily. The problem is that people say truly incongrous things that set of a train of thought, then you miss the rest of the conversation. It is sort of a filter problem. We don't think the "key" stuff, emotional content, talking about feelings, etc., are nearly as interesting. Unfortunately, most people are boring to an aspie.

You too eh. My soul screams for human contact, but within minutes of being around people I want out. And I love talking about real emotions and real personal experiences, but its so seldom that I meet someone who says what theyre really feeling or experiencing. Instead there seems to be a disconnect between the emotions that I can feel them feeling, and what they think theyre feeling. That sounds arrogant but its proven true too many times to discount.

Ahh. So it's not just me...

This dislike of "small talk" has become more pronounced as I have gotten older. Intellecutally, I know people want validation of feelings and emotional repair rather than to hear what we really think about their situation, but it feels so hollow. I get very little out of these exchanges.

Yep. And I know theres supposed to be some kind of emotional exchange during these talks about nothing, but I dont get it either. If emotions are propped up by humans exchanging meaningless data, and it only takes the fact that they are interfacing to complete this emotional exchange, what a pathetic lifestyle. Maybe we need to start training programs to teach nt's how to communicate in a meaningful fashion. hahahahahahaha

I wrote a song titled "Aspie Blues". One of the verses is;

All alone

Im so all alone

Even in a crowd

I just want to scream out loud

Please let me be

I cant stand all this insanity

Nightmares ahead,

nightmares behind

We're passing through a dangerous time

Hope we wake up soon and see the light.

Seeing the detail and whole picture is about seeing thing as they really are. Aspies are better at both. There is a possibility that mathatic aspies see things in more detail then non-mathantic aspies.