through the eyes of Autsim.What Autism feels likes

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The NT portion of the last video seems accurate for a relatively quiet or isolated city street. The city I live in is often, but not always, a bit noisier and chaotic than that in my non-autistic experience. The autistic portion of that video is more like my experience in crowded bars when a sports game is on - last time I was in that situation, I kind of psychologically distanced myself from the experience and sought out some pleasantly distracting stimuli. It makes me wonder if the people who seek out crowded bars during a sports game (I always only go with friends or my bf if they invite me) are either better at tuning it all out than I am - either they're super-NT or I'm not NT enough for those situations - or if they're just as uncomfortable as I am but they are also sucking it up and dealing for the sake of social bonding just like I am.

The first one:

- I do hear everything, but not at the same volume. My problem is that I don't process anything as background noise: it's all competing foreground.

- It's quite funny: the noise-filled part made it no more difficult for me to focus on the voice than the quiet part did. I guess I've had practice.

The second one is a pretty good description of why I couldn't work in a food place.

In the third one, the "Twinkle, Twinkle" is annoying. I don't have the mind of a f*****g toddler. And I don't see everything in blurred focus. The focus on small details is pretty accurate, though.

The fourth one: a minute for a few sentences of text? Are you serious? And again with the blurry visuals. Autism and myopia are distinctly different conditions.Also, the noise levels seem perfectly normal to me. This is what a supermarket is like. Do NTs have cotton wool stuffed in their ears or something?

The fifth one just kind of looks like looking out a bus window at night.

The camera needs to be more steady in the last one; people's visual systems compensate for movement.
The noise is pretty accurate. Again: do neurotypicals walk around with cotton wool in their ears? It's more bright than I perceive things normally.

I think it's more that it's harder for NTs to be distracted, and also on the other end, harder for NTs to achieve the "special interest" intensity of focus that autistics do. Have you ever heard of the experiment where they had a bunch of people watch a basketball game with the instructions to count how many times the ball was passed, and most of them were completely unaware that a man wearing a gorilla suit had walked through the field of view? A similar experiment was done where people went up to a desk, the guy at the desk ducked down behind the desk to get a pen, and then a totally different guy came back up from behind the desk to finish the task, and most people didn't notice. NTs often do not consciously register any sensory information that is deemed "irrelevant." Even if a city street is noisy and chaotic, I might not notice it if I am lost in thought. And maybe that's how most people survive the sports bar experience - from the moment they walk in, they're already too focused on something else (perhaps the joy of hanging out with their friends, or thoughts about the upcoming game) to be bothered by the unpleasant sensory stimuli.

On the other hand, the sounds could very well be quieter to NTs, if autistics tend to be hypersensitive to certain things.

That gorilla was pretty blatantly obvious when I saw the video.

Sure, and I remember noticing it too, but that's because I already new the trick. If I had been in the experiment, not known the trick (or not known much about the types of tricks in those psych experiments in general), and been intent on counting the number of times a ball was being passed back and forth, I can't say I would have noticed it.

I also recently read about another interesting stupid human (NT) trick that I've caught myself in the midst of: if an NT notices something weird but doesn't see anyone else around freaking out about it, they usually won't say anything themselves. The original experiment was done with smoke. Usually only the NTs who were alone in the room when they saw the smoke responded; those who were in a room with others (plants) ignoring the smoke stayed quiet about it. This has happened to me recently on airplanes, when I smelled the reek of jet fuel shortly before take-off, but didn't say anything because nobody else seemed worried and I assumed they could all smell it too.

The first time I saw the video, I didn't know the trick. I was counting as instructed and noticed the gorilla as soon as it appeared, just to clarify what I was saying.

That second example is interesting in terms of consensus perception. I think that is a behavior present in many animals as well. Herbivores use it to alert about or respond to an incoming threat, for example (I'm not saying humans are herd animals, just that it's interesting that the cognitive tendency is also present in humans).

I've not seen the gorilla experiment, but once recently I was watching a science program, and kept wondering why these wierd messages about being thirsty and wanting a drink kept popping up. At the end of the program they revealed that as an experiment they had been transmitting subliminal messages that only lasted for a fraction of a second!

The majority of NT's would have been totally unaware of the messages except for an urge to go get a drink. To me they were blatantly obvious and easy to read. I knew immediately that it must have been my autism that enabled me to read the messages so easily.

My curiosity has been piqued now as to what NT's can or can't hear, and keep asking my wife little questions about what she can hear!

As to NT's walking around with cotton wool in their ears, I'm 35% deaf in both ears, and still hear way more than most NT's do! Go figure

Thank you for posting this.

All I could say while watching that last video was wow. That is incredibly accurate for what I go through. Especially with the bush only I'd have to run my hand through it as I walked by instead of just looking at it and the light isn't quite that bad unless it's a really bright day outside.

I would give almost anything to see the world like that nt chip and be able to go outside and see everything without sunglasses and filter out things I don't want or need to hear.

On a smaller note I couldn't watch the video with the Enya music all the way through thanks to the flashing and the first one the cell phone and baby noises was incredibly annoying.

That last video while not perfect really sums up what my Autism feels like.

Wow.

Some of these things really nailed it. The first and the last ones I most related to. I didn't even realize I WAS hypersensitive to noise. It goes to show that what's normal for you isn't normal for everybody. I thought everybody heard like I do. But then I've learned in the last year that there are lots of things I do that I thought everybody else did too. During the last one, on the street, I was trying to see the cars that were passing and trying to see what was on the other side of the road. I'm not a very good driver because I notice all this kind of stuff when I'm driving.

In the first one, it mentioned something about hearing all noises at the same volume. I don't necessarily do that, but I hear lots of stuff. Right now as I'm sitting here (in the hospital with my mom after her surgery -- she's doing well, thank you ) I hear the TV, the A/C, the air pump running the leg massagers on Mom's legs,, the sound of my typing on the keyboard, footsteps of the nurse in the hallway, the sheets rustling as Mom rolls over, the old guy down the hall who is shouting for a nurse, and some kind of humming that I haven't yet identified. On top of all this, I also have pretty severe tinnitus, so ringing in my ears just adds to the cacophony.

I didn't really get the one in the restaurant, and the one with the "twinkle, twinkle" music kind of freaked me out a little. I kept thinking something was about to jump out at me. That could be due to my anxiety, though. I'm diagnosed with Panic Disorder.

One thing I wish someone could demonstrate is hypersensitivity to smells. Smoke, perfume, food smells, garbage, body odor...lots of smells in my day. When I was a kid, the smell of the gas heater set off my sneeze reflex every morning. I can sometimes smell the ozone in the air when the smog is really bad. The detergent/soap aisle in the grocery store is a killer for me. I have to hold my breath on the aisle or I'll start coughing and sneezing.

Now if they could just demonstrate what our social anxiety is like, then we'd REALLY have something.

Like others have said, I'd like to get the impressions on these videos from some NTs I know.

the first one ringed truest for me...light isn't as big a deal for me as it is for some others on here

noise's though kill my concentration/thinking....

that's why i can do well at tests because it's usually finally quite.....

i need quite or my music playing in order to have decent focus or else i can't hear myself think or others talk.

Does that mean you can tune it out and not hear it as in being deaf?

I related to the third and fifth ones the most. I related to the third because I focus in on little things and odd things a lot, although its not weird and fuzzy. I don't have bad eyesight. The fifth was just beautiful and I could watch it over and over. I LOVE visual stims.

The second one I would have related to more when I was younger. I wasn't too great at talking and would find people making decisions for me and I couldn't really speak up to tell them what I really wanted or was on my mind.

The last one. Well, I don't understand why people are saying the nt version is so nice and quiet and wonderful? That's how I experience a non busy street, but the sounds give me anxiety? It seems loud to me and the unpredictability of the cars swooshing by is awful. The AS version is what a very busy street would be like with me. I did need to turn the volume down to the same level as the NT one, but at that level, I found it easier to ignore the AS sounds. If everything is a loud mess I find it easier to ignore it because its all one constant sound. Still makes me feel anxious though.

I used to think I didn't really have any sound sensitivities, until I wore some noise reducing headphones one day. I found my anxiety significantly reduced and my ability to think clearly increased. So maybe I do have sound sensitivities?

I am NT but have sensory issues. The last video was interesting because I certainly don't see things as they are in the first video of walking down the street. The second video was too bright but the sounds were close. I don't like crowded areas like the city. I get anxious in those situations but do it for work or when needed. My daughter who is on the spectrum said the 2nd video is close but too bright. The sounds were correct.

Deleted post. I reposted below after making grammatical corrections. I hope I got them all.

Last edited by skibum on 25 Jul 2013, 11:54 pm, edited 3 times in total.