Understanding the model NTs operate on

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Both Jaydee and Nessa are right. Yes, NTs are individuals; they aren't all alike, they don't all think alike. But, at the same time, they do have the tendency to conform, to fit in, that pack mind. And really, understanding that is pretty important to understanding NTs. Don't take it as an absolute. A couple reasons not to. One, there's a whole continuum from autistic/AS to NT, and maybe even beyond that. Not even one falls neatly into NT or AS. But, also, just because NTs have that conformist pack tendency doesn't mean they are always like that. It's not that simple.

I really don't like this NT word, too wide. When you ask what it means, people just say non-autistic. That just makes me think they avoiding answering the question, because they hiding something. ( It was coined by the autistic community? ) So how did they come to this conclusion of what a non-autitic person is. Based on what exactly is a autistic person in the first place.

I think I will just stick with the I & E & take people on an individual level & just try & work out if they just playing the game, so people will not social alienate them.

As a generalisation aspies are the opposite of what you described, aspies as a group tend to be into facts and passing along information. It is wrong to generalise NTs as you have though, there are enormous differences and the response will depend on the situation.

This is perhaps where people get confused in this whole aspie vs NT thing, aspies have some fairly predictable traits, but the same isn't true of NTs.

Jason

The part of my post that you have quoted was about NTs not aspies. I never said aspies weren't into facts and passing on information - I was actively saying they were.

So you've misunderstood what I was saying.

And NTs are predictability personified in my opinion - they are practically like robots!
You can mess with their circuitry by asking them an unexpected question - their whole system goes 'Does not compute!' and they can't give an intelligent answer as the majority of their opinions come from their group, not from working it out for themselves.

People can only speak from their own experience of the NTs they have interacted with anyway and this is mine.

So please don't tell me I'm 'wrong' as it's all purely subjective anyway

No, I haven't misunderstood. You are generalising about NTs, where we can only generalise (with limited reliability) about aspies.

Could you give an example of an unexpected question? I know that a lot of aspies on this forum would struggle to answer expected questions, such as those given in a job interview.

Jason.

Imagine your mildest meltdown, it's resultant sensory input-output, coupled with emotional affect and combined with literal thinking------>Non-Autistic Thinking

TheSunAlsoRises

If your talking about "Idioms", anyone who does not know the meaning of one will take it literally. Sure I heard tones of people literally fallowing they gps system.



http://www.shiftjournal.com/2011/07/08/ ... -thinking/

That to me is a lack of common sense. You know they will break.

Take for Instance the situation involving disabled children being killed by their mothers.

There is a more effective way to handle the situation without outright accusing the mother of murder and denying her any sympathy. Once you take this approach, you have alienated yourself from the family in question and devalued their love ones. They have lost, in most cases atleast two family members; they do NOT need someone coming forth to proclaim one life as being more valuable than the other. While the cause and rightness of having a disabled victim acknowledge in any tragic circumstance is essential; the way it is approached is of the utmost importance for everyone involved

Just think how effective a person or an organization could become IF they contacted the family of disabled victims offered their condolences and remembrance without passing judgement. You see enough faces and vigils done in goodwill and those efforts will come to fruition.

In the handling of this situation, the flip-side is a literal approach which does NOT by default mean logical. Once, you accuse a parent(who has had a history of love and dedication to their disabled child) of being simply a murderer without taking into consideration other societal factors ; a deafening silence falls over a large population of people. These people who identify with and understand 'factors' other then the literalness of the act.. turn off. Thus, nothing is accomplished.

TheSunAlsoRises

Last edited by TheSunAlsoRises on 08 Apr 2012, 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I gave an example of the nuances of literal thinking( on this thread) without considering idioms.

I think a combination of all the factors below working at one time will give you a model of non-autistic thinking.

Imagine your mildest meltdown, it's resultant sensory input-output, coupled with emotional affect and combined with literal thinking------>Non-Autistic Thinking

TheSunAlsoRises

Yes-- true. And definitely you are no more all alike than we are-- I don't know about anyone else, but if you were, I'd have developed an algorithm for dealing with y'all by now and, while I might still be bitter and angry, I wouldn't be confused and I suspect I'd be less afraid.

NTs that run the way you are talking about are the ones I enjoy socializing with (and occasionally give a backhanded compliment by saying something like, "I wonder what the hell your diagnosis is.").

Y'all are definitely a significant percentage of the NT population-- I don't know whether a majority or not-- and I don't think we mean to ignore you or deny your existence.

We just don't talk about you much because you are not the aspect of society we're having problems with. You are the aspect of society that gives us hope to keep trying, to believe there's a reason to keep trying, to be confused when we get burned by the stupid and nasty ones... oy vey. This gets complicated, doesn't it??

Kind of like many mental health professionals (and all too many knowledgeable NTs) don't talk about all the things we can do, all the strengths we do have (unless they're rather condescendingly trying to talk us out of ending our own lives)-- because those things aren't a problem.

OK, guys-- There's a high-functioning neurotypical (lol ) in the house-- let's put our heads together and see what we can figure out to do about a problem that is, frankly, vexing for a great many of all of us.

Maybe if we can work it out, we can teach it to the Christians and the Pagans...

...and when they get it, we'll move on to the Muslims and the Jews.

OK. Enough bitter humor. Back to the subject matter at hand.

The spectrum is so diverse.....BUT here is another way of looking at non-autistic thinking.


IF you can do this, imagine something happens to whatever means the most to you in your life, a person, animal, place, object, or special interest ; it's taken away never to be returned. I want you to turn down the emotional affect resulting in this lost approximately 85 percent. The remaining 15% emotional affect influences your method of thinking on a constant basis.

TheSunAlsoRises

The Sun Also Rises, I am very interested in what you are saying and the models you have proposed, however I do not understand what you are meaning? Can you or someone please explain?

By any chance, are you a Star Trek fan ? Let me give you a visual aid to explain *a* bullying situation between a Non-Autistic and 'other' neurological difference. I want you to pay close attention to the dialogue and reactions between the two main characters.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY9NkYGUEyE&feature=fvsr[/youtube]

TheSunAlsoRises

I think it makes more sense to think in terms of the models NTs operate on. Not just because NT vary from each other. But because individuals vary from one situation to another in how they act. NTs being more prone to that than those on the autistic spectrum.

Understanding the NT ability to mold oneself (subconsciously) to fit into a group is a key important difference that helps in understanding NTs. But it won't help in understanding one's NT friends, as far as interacting with them. Because it's not a situation that brings that out.

This is going to be a long one, I'm afraid, but I need to clarify what I talked about in my previous contributions. First and foremost: I agree with Mysty. My point is that it is almost meaningless to talk about NTs as a “group” of people. NTs, defined as people not on the autistic spectrum, constitute the majority of the planet’s 6 billion people. That’s an astounding number of different individuals. The fact that people around the world regard it as more or less meaningful to form communities of varying size and functions and that they find that it is more or less useful and meaningful to relate to each other (socialize, if you will), says very little about the individuals (the NTs, if you will) forming those communities. And the communities, too, are vastly different.
Allow me to refer to a video published by Berkley Media, produced by professor Dane Archer. It is called “A world of differences: Understanding cross-cultural communication”:

“When we encounter people from other societies or cultures, we may fail to understand them for many reasons, including differences in language, values, gestures, emotional expression, norms, rituals, rules, expectations, family background, and life experiences. This extraordinary video shows that cross-cultural communication can be successful if we manage to understand the powerful differences that separate people who come from differing cultures.”

If non-spectrum people were as alike and homgenous as one might be tempted to think, then we wouldn’t need to study each others’ communities and cultures, because we would have the same models of perception, expectations and behaviour. We would “get” each other. But we don’t. People from, say, the US, Mali in Africa, Norway, North Korea, Britain, Polynesia, you name it, have quite different ways of relating to the world around them. Imagine living in a tribe in Mali where people aren’t allowed to ever be on their own! From a Norwegian’s perspective this sounds downright awful. And NTs all over the world find each others' styles and ways puzzling and weird. As a Norwegian, I often find Americans puzzling, and there's much about their communication I find weird. In some cultures people do not make eye-contact with people they don’t know intimately, while in other cultures not making eye-contact is a sign of disrespect. In some cultures teasing kids is an accepted way of toughening them up to stand the hardships of life; in other cultures this type of child rearing is so unacceptable that it’s almost regarded as a crime. The examples of differences are countless. And these facts also build upon generalizations again. Within the multitude of cultures, there are many, many nuances.

That’s why I believe that the main question asked in this debate is almost impossible to answer. It is too big and all-encompassing. There is no one good answer to it. Non-autistic people do not operate on one model, or think, feel and behave in one given way, we are simply too many and to different. I understand that many autistic people become frustrated and maybe confused as to how to react to certain things, how to understand certain things in the world. But I just don’t think it is rewarding to divide the world into “NTs” and “aspies”, or “them” and “us”. Such a distinction may create the extra burden of feeling that the whole world of “the others” is different from you, they can never understand you, and they are against you and never wish you well. It may make it more difficult and frightening to try and reach out than it really is. The world isn’t full of bullies. The world is full of humans. Concentrate on figuring out the ones in your proximity that you care about. That is my best and most well meant advice.

Understanding the model NTs operate on

I think it can be answered BUT i believe most things can BE. We simply don't know the answers at any given point in time.

Autistics gravitate toward plants, objects, buildings, animals, academic subjects, etc....virtually all things Non-Autistic people do except for Non-Autistic people as a whole.


A planet birthed out of cyberspace suggests that Autists even gravitate toward......



The core differences manifest themselves in development which has a profound effect upon socialization.

John Scott Holman has done several videos. In one particular video, he was having a meltdown. He was agitated, stimming, volatile, and a bit out of control BUT he was lucid. I could follow his rationale. He had thought back on a situation...reviewed the body language, what was said, how it was said, and the motives behind what was being done to him. Classic Non-Autistic thinking BUT laced with exaggerated facial expressions and many of the behavior patterns THAT come with ASDs.

I have my theories on meltdowns.....

*Just an opinion and should be taken as such
TheSunAlsoRises