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A couple of questions about mind reading

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Nonperson
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06 Aug 2012, 12:14 pm

kirayng wrote:
I don't know what 'sad' feels like, when people say I look sad, I feel physical pain in my chest that makes me cry or want to cry.[/i] Not all people with autism have alexithymia, but most do.


That's interesting, because I would say that feeling you describe is sadness. I never thought there was anything else to it, except that it might be coupled with "sad" thoughts (which would usually be thoughts about some loss or disappointment, or pessimistic interpretations of things). I'm not sure if that's normal or alexithymia.
:?



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06 Aug 2012, 12:24 pm

nrau wrote:
TallyMan wrote:
empathy_ wrote:
If I learn Chinese for long enough i wont translate it back into English. I will understand Chinese "subconsciously" after a while. What do you think about that? Do you think the same could be applied to subtle emotional expressions?

they say the brain improve and adapt to whatever your using it for. Do you think your emotional recognition part of your brain can grow with enough training or do you feel you're never gonna improve your subconscious emotional detection?


I am learning French and sometimes I think in French without translating it back to English. Possibly we could learn subtle emotional expressions given help. I don't know. I guess it depends on part why we have this deficit in the first place? From what I've read our brains are slightly different to neurotypicals in a few ways. It is apparently now possible to detect our different brain functioning using MRI scanning techniques. If we lack some neural circuity associated with subconscious emotional detection maybe the techniques can be learned and used consciously instead?


it's different.
imagine that every thought, before converted to words and language, is "raw"
Then, if we focus on this thought or if we want to contemplate something we convert this thought into more precise medium-words. Language.
The reason why we think in some language and not the other is because
1. Some thought are easier to express in one language then other-mainly due to vocabulary problems
2. we got used to thinking in that language
3. we force ourselves to think in that languages, for one or another reason

it's a logical thing and it's not connected to understanding emotions. Not really.


A lot of autistic people don't think in a language, they think in pictures/images. the difficulty communicating is more profound because there is more to translate. I am verbal/concept thinker, I think in english and I also think in 'nonthought' which is before language, as Nrau demonstrates in the above.



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06 Aug 2012, 1:18 pm

empathy_ wrote:
1. If I smile do you understand that im probably in happy mood?

If you smile I understand that you're smiling. I also understand that the stereotypical mood that goes with a smile is happy. I also understand that happy is not the only mood that goes with a smile.

However for the question I think you're trying to ask here, yes.

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2. If you look at person smiling for long enough will you feel somewhat happy as well?


Only if its someone I care a lot about and it is the "positive" type smile, not the "negative" type smile. And its specifically because it makes me feel good to have people I care about in good moods, especially with how much negative is going on currently.

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3. If someone yawns, do you think that will make you yawn as well?


Rarely

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4. Do you understand the concept of "feeling"?


I cannot explain, but I have a base concept that "feeling" means to me. It's a very weak concept, and I don't have a full understanding, but I do have a partial understanding.

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5. Do you "feel" happy/sad/whatever?


I often cannot identify what I'm feeling, but I often feel them anyways. "I'm not okay" is pretty common for me to say - because I can't figure out any more details than that.

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6. If you're listening to someone, do find yourself mimicing some of the other persons body movements/facial expressions?


No

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7. How would you define an emotion (your immediate thoughts rather than wikipedia it or trying to write a "correct" answer)?


Truthfully, I wouldn't be able to. I'd try to and get so overwhelmed by trying to that I'd end up at least functioning at a far lower level, and with the amount of stress I've been going through lately (moving), I'd likely end up nonverbal currently. I cannot afford to try to at the moment.

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8. On a scale 1-10 how well are you at reading peoples emotions?


About a 2. I identify polarity and only polarity in most situations. I cannot tell intensity or what the emotion is. I can tell that it is positive or that it is negative. That's all. I'm quite accurate about whether it is positive or negative as long as you count tired as negative, and as long as manic is in a weird state where its both positive and negative at the same time.

(As for the type of thinking stuff people are currently talking about - I'm a concept thinker that has to translate to words in order to communicate with words. It's easier to translate to words than to translate to pictures, but there's a translation layer there - I'm not a verbal thinker either.)



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06 Aug 2012, 1:28 pm

kirayng wrote:
A lot of autistic people don't think in a language, they think in pictures/images. the difficulty communicating is more profound because there is more to translate. I am verbal/concept thinker, I think in english and I also think in 'nonthought' which is before language, as Nrau demonstrates in the above.


Me too. That is, I think in something that isn't language (images or something harder to describe) but sometimes it is "echoed" by words in my mind, particularly when it's something I think I might want to explain to someone later. The words are really just an approximation of the actual thought, which can be frustrating.
But when it comes to languages, that echo can be in German nearly as easily as in English, and it doesn't really make any difference. Language is language - they're pretty interchangeable for the most part, although there are a few concepts named in one and not the other. I don't think nonverbal communication could become automatic for me in that way, since it's really not like a language at all as far as I can tell. I think it's more like dancing (something else I have trouble learning).