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Visual Thinking & Telling Time

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riot_gun
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14 Mar 2012, 9:39 pm

I have a much easier time with digital clocks, but then I have trouble with estimating angles.



CanisMajor
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15 Mar 2012, 8:38 am

Ganondox wrote:
Did you learn how to read analog before digital?


Yes I did. I also had the little clock thing that the teacher would move the hands on to show how it worked.

Cornflake wrote:
Interesting...
Time read from a digital display is just "time now". It's factual, naked and isolated; if I want to know how long I have to wait until something happens I have to calculate it out to get a "feel" for how long that is. Essentially, I convert it to a visual metaphor before the time is able to take on any more significance than just "now".

Time read from an analog display has an immediate and visual position relative to the past and the future: everything I need to see about "now" and where it "sits" relative to the day is on display.
I know without thinking the feel of how long ago "X" happened that day, and how long it is until "Y" happens: it's all read in parallel.

Also; "read"?
I'm not conscious of actually reading anything from an analog clock: the time is immediately apparent and requires no more thought than, for example, knowing I'm looking at something coloured red. It just "is".


Exactly! Yeah, I don't technically "read" it either, but that's the word usually used in this case. It really is just like knowing something is red.

dizzywater wrote:
BUT if asked "How long until we leave?" I can easily answer "in five minutes" from an analogue clock, my brain copes better with that question because I can see the time now, and know its a single 30' increment until the "plan to go time", so thats five minutes no matter where on the clock it is. In this case the digital clock would be slower to answer from because I need to subtract instead of just seeing the angle.

That is one of many examples of two questions my husband thinks are the same. :roll:


Hahaha! That's what I mean! It's much easier to determine the time between two activities when I can see it on the analog clock.

AnOldHFA wrote:
When digital clocks first came out I could not use them to tell what time of day it was... 12:22 just ment 12:22 and not a little after noon.
Some decades later I have to do the same and make a mentel clock with its hands pointing
Military time also took a while to get...


I hate military time! It just adds an extra step to the process. Now I have to subtract 12 from the number, then convert it into a visual. :? Now I have a brother in the Air Force, too, so he and another brother use military time together. They even changed the clocks in their cars to military time. I'm so glad I like wearing a watch!



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15 Mar 2012, 10:44 am

Interesting. I used to be able to read off digital clocks much easier. That's all there is to it though. Having a analogue watch (analogue clocks tick so I usually stay clear of them) reading it has become fairly simple and quick nowadays.

Both digital and analogue clocks are equally easy or difficult to transfer into a meaningful measure of time however.

If I need to head out at 4:55 and it is 4:54 according to my digital clock, then I don't intuitively realise that 5 follows 4 and that 4:54 does not mean that "I still have time" only because it isn't 4:55 yet.

I visualise time somewhat like a vertical band or line starting at 0:00/24:00 and ending at 24:00/0:00. No loop, just a straight band with two ends.

It probably has this shape because days are also distinct from each other and we don't act as if we have one day looping again and again. I'm pretty sure that my understanding of time is like this, because every moment/every day is new so and not reoccurring/looping. Also, we get born and we die, a pretty straight line from beginning to end, no loops.

The current time is somewhere on that band and in order to understand and measure time, I always have the entire band for reference.

It's too bad neither the digital or analogue clock are like that, digital only shoes me a couple of digital and analogue is round... we need better clocks on this planet. It took ages to learn to read any clock as a kid. The analogue clock occurred me as simple but time meant nothing to me and I wasn't interested.


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15 Mar 2012, 1:43 pm

CanisMajor wrote:
I've heard of some autistic people having trouble telling time before. I got an issue that I always thought was unique.

I'm great at telling time... if it's with an analog clock. I can just take a split-second glance at it and know, "Okay, ten minutes and then it's lunch time!" or, "Wow, that was only twenty-five minutes ago?"

However, I have trouble reading digital clocks. Everyone else tells me digital is "soooo much easier!", but I sometimes struggle with it. The thing is, I can see a digital clock, but in order for me to understand it, I first have to "translate" the written numbers into the angles of the hands on a clock face. I can even read the clock out loud, "It's 12:22", but if I don't visualize the small hand being slightly after 12 and the long hand being just below 4, the words mean almost nothing to me. I even change the clocks on my phone and my computer to analog so that I can understand them with a glance.

Everyone tells me it's weird. I've even heard people say that they hate analog clocks. I can understand digital being easier for others: it is literally writing the numbers that people hear. But it's just not easier for me. I only recently realized that I'm an Aspie, and now it makes me wonder: with our preference for visual-thinking, is this normal for us? Does anyone else here think of clock times in angles rather than numbers?

Also, does anyone have any similar situations that they think of visually rather than abstractly? It's possible I do this with other things but I don't even realize it's different yet.

I always think about things visually. ^^

There was a period in my life where I had great difficulty reading analogue clocks. Nowadays it's ok though.

But I think about time... in an abstract way, never related to a visual component. If an analogue clock says 5 past half past eight, I think, "Ah, it's evening". I never think about it as one particular moment in time.

I think about time emotionally, too. If I see 5 o'clock (p.m.) on an analogue clock, I think, "Ah, I like that time of day". I think of time in an associative manner, I think. ^^


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15 Mar 2012, 1:51 pm

TheHouseholdCat wrote:

But I think about time... in an abstract way, never related to a visual component. If an analogue clock says 5 past half past eight, I think, "Ah, it's evening". I never think about it as one particular moment in time.

I think about time emotionally, too. If I see 5 o'clock (p.m.) on an analogue clock, I think, "Ah, I like that time of day". I think of time in an associative manner, I think. ^^


I like that description.. I can look at an analog clock and get these reactions. I'm late, I must leave, it's early, bed time and so on.

It is not nessassary to work out the current time on an analog clock, the time is what the hands are, completely visual.

Fascinating topic..

Jason



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15 Mar 2012, 8:53 pm

I think the main thing here is that for the most part aspies think in pictures so untill you see the workings of a thing in your picture it simply will never work. At lest that's how I be.



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15 Mar 2012, 10:31 pm

CanisMajor wrote:

However, I have trouble reading digital clocks. Everyone else tells me digital is "soooo much easier!", but I sometimes struggle with it. The thing is, I can see a digital clock, but in order for me to understand it, I first have to "translate" the written numbers into the angles of the hands on a clock face. I can even read the clock out loud, "It's 12:22", but if I don't visualize the small hand being slightly after 12 and the long hand being just below 4, the words mean almost nothing to me. I even change the clocks on my phone and my computer to analog so that I can understand them with a glance.

Does anyone else here think of clock times in angles rather than numbers?


I can relate to this- I am a very visual/special thinker and i also have to translate the numbers into analog in my head to make sense of it. Time gets away from me if I don't have an analog clock available to watch (vs a digital).

On a side note, I am also color blind so I struggle at seeing digital red LED displays anyways.


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16 Mar 2012, 5:58 am

zooguy wrote:
I think the main thing here is that for the most part aspies think in pictures so untill you see the workings of a thing in your picture it simply will never work. At lest that's how I be.

It's a terrible feeling. You try to understand, but it just doesn't make sense to you.


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