Do you ever cry when watching TV/a film? Is this empathy?

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'Depends on whether you were crying out of sadness, happiness ect.

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I rarely feel anything for the people on T.V./in movies, the time I felt most for someone on screen was when Rainman's brother kept moving all of his stuff out of place.

I cried only once or two on a TV show. Immediately after I had started crying I ended up laughing without a particular reason.

It distresses me very much when I see scenes like in the Captain Planet episode Horns A'Plenty, when they find a rhino calf next to his mother who was killed and dehorned by poachers, like he's asking her to please get up. It always upsets me when I see animals suffering.

Yes often.

I've only cried once during Forest Gump when his mother dies. I actually laughed a few times when I watched Titanic. I've never cried during other movies, like ones you're supposed to cry in... not sure if this is correct, but not The Shaw shank Redemption, Deep Impact, eh a few others I've watched I guess. The point is that I don't cry during movies.

'Depends on whether you were crying out of sadness, happiness ect.

Happiness. Relief. Clarity.

I can cry when watching tv, mostly when it involves people or animals dying. For example, there was this documentary series a few years ago. They followed serveral terminally ill, but young people. It was mostly interviews and small moments of their lives to discuss they way they looked at life now that they knew that only had limited time left, but it also included parts of the last few days before death (with permission of all involved ofcourse). There was one really intense episode where they filmed the last day of someone who was going to be euthanized later that day. Things like that can make me cry.

Very rarely will i cry at a movie. Sometimes once in a blue moon i will. It is odd as i cry at things normal people would not cry at.
Like one time i cried within the first opening credits... i'm not sure what the dialog was however it must have hit me.

TV shows i never cry at those. I don't watch a lot of movies and i don't cry at romantic carp in the movies thats just nauseating.
However if a movie is written so well i may cry like when the shot Bonnie and Clyde in the tv remake back in 93 i believe it was..
Thelma and Louise the end of the movie i cried. I cried at the Shawshank Redemption movie.

It really takes a lot out of a tv or movie to actually affect me emotionally at all, let alone get my attention for than 15 mins...

I cry at films, unless the film is really funny and has no intention of making the viewers sad or whatever.

I do know NTs that don't cry at films. Usually women do more, but men and teenagers often cry less. I've watched a film with sad bits in it with my teenage cousins, and they started grinning when there was a really emotional bit, while I sat there almost feeling disturbed by the emotional scenes.

It's not that an autistic person lacks the capacity for empathy. Some do, but most don't. What we lack is the tools to read the social signals. Because we find it difficult to communicate with others and to be understood by others, a lot of us feel that others think and feel the same as us. I mean, we only have ourselves as point of reference, right?

But a movie is different than a person. Movies have structure and we as an audience get a personal glimpse into the feeling and thoughts of people. Films give you tools to work with that socializing does not. If you just said "It's a story about a boy and he gets separated from his parents" and left it at that, I'd go "meh". However if you establish the characters the setting and conflict very well, then I might feel strong emotions.

That is not to say that I don't feel strong emotions for my friends. It's just easier to read these things in movies than it is in real life.

Incidentally, it's hard to make me cry at movies. I can be invested in a film, but I hardly cry. If a movie does make me cry (and it has a couple of times) that usually makes it one of my favorite movies as it shows that this filmmaker is able to elicit these emotions in someone like me.

I cried at "What dreams may come", Muriels wedding, and a few others.

Your tears were a way of releasing emotion, after a lot of emotion had built up inside you.
This is just normally referred to as "crying with happiness".

i wept during scenes in "the wizard of oz" - oh poor dorothy!
i was emotionally tore up watching "AI-Artificial Intelligence" - oh poor david
i basically cry when other people cry, i can't help it, i can't hide it, i wear it on my sleeve
i don't really know much difference between sympathy [smaller more localized empathy?] and empathy [universal sympathy?] but i do know that i feel others' pain. what's weird is that i also "feel" the pain of anything forlorn or abandoned. abandonment is the button that when you push it in my brain, it goes TILT! children's toys casually tossed to the curb, i find when out walking, pick them up, take them home and wash them, then make them comfy on pillows. i can't not do that. i remember reading about the japanese shinto hari kuyo or needle shrine, where in a religious ceremony, broken and surplussed sewing machine needles rest in vats of soft warm tofu, and are venerated/appreciated for the years of loyal service they gave their former owners. that broke me up when i read it. i guess i'm weird

I cry a lot when I see a tv show or a movie that is sad.

I cried when Molly died in A Country Practice (and still do whenever I watch my DVD box set)
Also in the sad scenes in Les Miserables, And when Simba's Dad died in The Lion King.
The worst one was The Champ when the little boy was trying to wake his father up when he died I ended up knocking the popcorn of the seat in the cinema.

http://aspergercenter.com/Emotional-Reg ... ectrum.pdf

"There are individual differences in arousal levels; those on the spectrum often experience highly variable or overly sensitive arousal states."

"Given the situations of overwhelming sensory stimulation and the very real bullying that the majority of children with ASDs experience, the panicky, over-reactive behaviors others observe are more explainable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_dysregulation

"ED is also found among those with autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger syndrome. In such cases as borderline personality disorder, hypersensitivity to emotional stimuli causes a slower return to a normal emotional state. This is manifested biologically by deficits in the frontal cortices of the brain."

Depends on the movie.

Generally if it involves kids or animals in bad situations, I'll probably cry.

Black Beauty (1994 version), never fails to make me cry. Grave of the Fireflies made me cry.

Not so much for TV. Though one scene in the final episode of The Pacific made me a little watery. And I remember crying a bit during an episode of Third Watch. Both of which did not involve animals or kids.