Do non-living things have personalities to you?

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this is most likely synesthesia. (I have this type to, along with pain-color,sound-emotion, and grapheme-color) synesthesia is the crossing of the senses,I therefore it allows people to taste words or hear movement) called ordinal linguistic personification synesthesia, or OLP for short. I recommend researching synesthesia, its really fascinating.

this is most likely synesthesia. (I have this type to, along with pain-color,sound-emotion, and grapheme-color) synesthesia is the crossing of the senses,I therefore it allows people to taste words or hear movement) called ordinal linguistic personification synesthesia, or OLP for short. I recommend researching synesthesia, its really fascinating.

I've gotten things because they were a "friendly" shade of yellow or purple or what have you.

Yes. Not in an exaggerated way, mind, but I draw the line if someone is being aggressive towards objects, I expect everyone to treat things as well as I do.

I don't know if it's synethesia for me. It's just a way of relating to the physical, nonliving world. It's ... anthropomorphization. Assigning human qualities to things. I believe everyone does this because they are human. The internal experience is the only way of relating to the external world. The internal experience is human, so, relations to the outside world happen in human terms.

In descriptive writing, you're taught to do this so people can grasp things better. You might write: "the angry waves of the sea recklessly dashed themselves asunder on the rocks". The waves aren't angry or reckless, of course, but it conveys a scene people can imagine more readily because of how human beings think.

So unless everyone has synesthesia, I think it can't always be a case of synesthesia.

I don't think everyone does it. I think a lot of people actually don't. Someone might describe waves as angry and reckless but they probably will not literally think that the waves are angry or reckless.

They're still projecting a personality on to the waves in order to relate. Everyone does it; this is why they teach it as an effective technique in descriptive writing, because practically everyone will relate to the method.

Granted - there is a difference between this, and true synesthesia. But they do seem related.

Last edited by edgewaters on 05 Jun 2012, 8:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yeah, I used to develop uncanny feelings for the colour blue, or choose certain objects based on the mood I associated with them. Can't really remember any specifics, though, just irrational choices based on the way the object made me feel.

http://www.synesthesiatest.org/types-of-synesthesia

Ordinal-linguistic personification is a type of synesthesia that is rare. It is similar to what was described in the earlier link by Verdandi, however that appeared to be a rare case, that was noteworthy enough for a case study in research.

On the other hand anthropomorphism "is any attribution of human characteristics (or characteristics assumed to belong only to humans) to other animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities." Personification of inanimate objects falls under this umbrella term for attribution of human characteristics to non-living things. That is a normal part of the human experience.

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

Perhaps the most extreme form of attachment to inanimate objects are those that love them, consider them live intelligent beings, and even marry them. Perhaps an extreme form of animism.

This rare phenomenon described as a potential new sexual orientation, has been associated with some individuals whom are diagnosed with autism or aspergers.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2009/04/13/the-end-of-divorce-growing-numbers-of-people-marrying-inanimate-objects/

And finally, there is the extreme female brain theory, that attributes one with extreme empathy assigning a mind, thoughts and feelings to inanimate objects as well as associating this extreme female brain with Paranoid Schizophrenia, and the suggestion that it is the opposite of the extreme male brain theory and Autism.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200803/male-brain-vs-female-brain-ii-what-is-extreme-male-brain-w

Of course, two mistakes, labeling systemization per gender and empathy per gender, in the case of each theory per politically incorrect language. Obviously Paranoid Schizophrenia is not a gender specific based disorder, nor are Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Ordinal-linguistic personification is thought to potentially be misidentified as schizophrenia in some individuals. But, not specifically associated with any disorder.

We live in fairly open minded times, where one could marry the Eiffel Tower, and it be considered a potential difference in sexual orientation rather than a mental disorder.

Personification of objects is common, but the type of empathy in adulthood where one bandages an inanimate object, because they actually perceive that the inanimate object has feelings that have been hurt, is not nearly as common.

I don't think it is necessarily indicative of a disorder though, because humans spend so much time with inanimate objects as compared to the past. Perhaps it is instead indicative of spending too much time with inanimate objects, and a natural human adaptation that some are more likely to experience than others.

I loved the movie "Maximum Overdrive", whenever this topic comes up that movie is the first thing I think of. All those years spent driving on the interstate and the menacing looking Semi Trucks bearing down on the rear view mirror. They did seem alive in someways, particularly when I was young. I always wanted to stay ahead of them, so they wouldn't get me. I don't suppose I was paranoid, because in reality they really could "get me".

As a youth, I remember those old wooden powerline poles lining the highways; they seemed alive in someways too, before car radios, the interstates, and lots of traffic, when one looked forward to seeing another car for company on a desolate two lane highway. The wooden powerline poles with the cross branches for arms, were the closest thing to a human, until one met the next car.

Humans survived for so many thousands of years in constant contact with others, it's no wonder at times they look to inanimate objects for companionship, when the humans are distant, busy doing something else, or not particularly friendly.

Eventually I was exposed to so many humans, manmade objects, sounds, and associated complex details that all had meaning and feeling, that I reached a point of novel discomfort. I then looked forward to the potential of a desolate road lined only by trees, for an escape.

What once brought me loneliness and boredom, provided that escape. When one no longer wants to listen to the car radio, it's may be a sign one has had too much culture, potentially before one looks forward to a desolate road. I suppose some can handle more mileage than others, or some endure more mileage than others.

My toys had personalities, families n best friends... now they say aspies cant do imaginary play which i argue against my lecturers all the time on that one....

I believed my toy cars had personalities, each had a name, though when i was 2 all the boyish coloured cars were Peters and all the girly colours were called Christie/Christina. my cars were living breathing objects... at age 22 i still kinda feel that way and am very attached to the objects..

Now my phone has a personality... it even gets PMS... when it has a hissy fit n is angry at me it turns itself off. It was given to me by another aspie who is also convinced the reason that this phone plays up so much is because it misses him.

When new objects are given to me, it takes me ages to call them mine. I need to make an attachment with them.
So if i havent an attachment with an object like that phone, when it was 1st given to me i called it "the phone that jaedee gave me" or "Jaedee's phone" it was never "my phone."

This can happen with pencils, I also must keep them all in colourbetical order....n get very angry if they are not put back the way they came out of the box. Again i have an attachment to these objects, but i wouldnt go as far as saying my pencils have a personality... though sometimes i wonder... when one has high qualitly colouring pencils and you get that hard roughness in the lead where it wont draw smoothly, is this the pencils way of telling you it doesnt like/want you using it...

When I was younger I definitely always anthromorphized my toys and other objects. I had little interest in playing with playing/hanging out with peers of my age so I played with my toys and pretended that they had personalities even though I knew long before that they didn't, just for fun. I did that until I turned 13 (much older than when normal kids stop doing that kind of stuff) where I developed new interests.

1. I would marry the Magnum XL-200 in a heartbeat.

2. I just do not see the reasoning for schizophrenia being an "extreme female brain." I mean, at least the "extreme male brain" hypothesis of ASDs has its root in the fact that there are substantially more males diagnosed with ASDs than females. But it is a known fact that schizophrenia tends to have an earlier onset in males than in females, and there is no overall difference in gender ratio. So, how in the world is this support for an "extreme female brain"?

I'm not so sure even that is too uncommon. Watch an engine mechanic at work. He talks to the engine. He soothes it. He becomes angry with it. He expresses approval and sometimes even love for it.



Objects themselves have changed. For most of human history, every object was unique. An inanimate object was either natural, or manmade. No two natural objects were alike and when all manmade objects were handmade, no two of them were alike either. But almost all inanimate objects were "dead", incapable of complex behaviour. Now we live in a time when few manmade objects are unique, everything is mass produced. Yet at the same time they are capable of increasingly complex behaviours. Once this was simply mechanical, such as engines, but now some objects can process information and react to it.

bampu

I agree that your example of automobile engines is common. What I didn't clearly describe was an adult literally putting an actual band-aid on an inanimate object, because one feels it has a human like injury that is painful.

An analogy would be if I put a band-aid on a vehicle door dinged. I can't say I've ever seen that in my entire life, but similar behavior has been reported on this internet site, and if remember correctly it was a wall or a table. It wouldn't be unusual, to see a child do this to a baby doll or a stuffed animal, though.

The Graphic User Interface, definitely brought life to computers for the masses. The same magic I remember with stuffed animals, Radio, and TV. I still can't forget the magic I felt when my family obtained a console color TV at about the Age of 16. But, then the attachments become so much more complex through empathy and circumstances with people one would never meet in real life. It provides an individual a virtual potential to live a thousand vicarious lifetimes of what anyone before that invention could possibly live and experience in the real world.

It's no wonder modern human beings are capable of having such interesting dreams.

The male and female extreme brain theories are both based on sytemizing vs empathizing tendencies as related to correlations with gender. In both cases oversimplifications of complex disorders, brain gender, and cognitive behavioral attributes, where systemizing attributes may be more apparent for some diagnosed with schizophrenia, and empathy attributes may be more apparent for some diagnosed with ASD's. I'm sure both categories of attributes continue to change over a lifetime in an individual male or female, depending on environment and genetics.

I think it is safe to say though that systemizing qualities, in general, are stronger in autistic individuals, per information gathered from the AQ test, and unusually strong empathy attributes are measured among some schizophrenics to the point of making empathy based inferences that are not reasonable, per paranoia, beyond what the AQ test measures. But, there are many potential exceptions to those generalities, in attempts to measure both disorders, in part because behavior is measured for a diagnoses, instead of brain scans.

The extreme female brain theory is an outlier one that hasn't received a great deal of exposure. Not likely, I think, that anyone would have even come up with the theory, if not preceded by an extreme male brain theory.

I tend to wonder if Cohen might be a bit on the broader autism phenotype, himself, to come up with the name of his theory. It appears he may have got trapped in his own details, failing to see the bigger picture of other attributes correlated with brain gender not necessarily correlated with systemization skills or empathy. But, his focus was on Autism Disorder, per his extreme male brain theory, with little research done on individuals with Aspergers.

It was interesting that his 2D/4D finger ratios, as associated with prenatal testosterone exposure, among those males with Aspergers, was not as low as those whom were diagnosed with Autism Disorder in his research. It makes sense considering the common verbal delays measured in Autism Disorder, and other studies associated with prenatal exposure to testosterone, brain development, and language development.

While most everyone who visits this site reported diagnosed with an ASD, scores high on the systemizing quotient of the AQ test, the results are often close to neutral in broader measures of brain gender, particularly the Brain Sex I.D. test, linked on this site, that if I remember correctly has 10 different testing elements.

At least for Aspergers, if one had to come up with a name for a gender based brain theory, it might be the gender balanced brain theory of Aspergers. I suspect that is also at least in part, hormonal and developmentally based in nature, but not necessarily specific to prenatal testosterone, as Cohen relates it to brain gender. That too, would be a simplified generalization.

There is an interesting theory based on estrogen and autism rather than testosterone and autism at this website: http://www.neoteny.org/, that is much more complex than any theory I have seen associated with autism, but it hits many spots, that Cohen appears to miss per Aspergers, as well as his theory specific to prenatal exposure of testosterone. Prenatal testosterone is linked to many characteristics among human beings not necessarily associated with autism, such as athleticism, those in high positions of leadership, etc.

The extreme personification of inanimate objects, the schizotypal correlations per both personality tests and interest in psi phenomenon, etc, reported here on this site, seem to provide some anecdotal evidence of a strong capacity for affective empathy expressed in other areas than the human measures of empathy that are captured on the AQ test.

Cohen received quite a bit of criticism for his initial suggestion that individuals with Aspergers were lacking in cognitive and affective empathy. Eventually he changed his view and others did as well that there was problems with cognitive empathy rather than affective empathy among most individuals with Aspergers, but I think the issues with cognitive empathy may have something to do with the high levels of Alexithymia identified among approximately 85% of individuals with Aspergers.

He continues to maintain that there are deficits in both cognitive and affective empathy among those with Autism Disorder. Not sure how one determines that for sure though, with someone who has problems communicating with the world both verbally and non-verbally. Some individuals that accommodate with adaptive communication technologies, tell a much different story that what is assumed from external behavior.