A hypothesis that those on spectrum are not socially blind

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I thought this was interesting. From Karla McLaren's "The Language of Emotions":

"There is some preliminary evidence suggesting that people on the autism spectrum may have deficient mirror neurons, which could mean that they have difficulties reading the thoughts and emotions of others and, therefore, have a hard time becoming normatively socialized.

However, in 2007, I had the great good fortune to work with a group of autistic college students, and while I assumed that my excessive reliance upon my mirror neurons placed me at the opposite end of the autism spectrum, I actually found that the autistics and I shared the feeling that humans were a chaotic and confusing species. I also found that the way I liked to behave when I was alone - quiet, calm, and extremely honest about the foibles of myself and others - was also the preferred way of being among many of my autistic friends. Although many people believe that autistics are blind to human behaviors, my hypothesis is that many people on the autism spectrum may sense those behaviors too acutely and in too many different ways and are therefore dealing with painfully disorganized sensory overload."

When my psychiatrist told me I'm autistic and, (according to him) can't empathise with other people or see their emotions, I was really very offended. I do care a lot about other people and can see and understand how they feel. Maybe it's something I've learned to recognise, and maybe it doesn't come naturally for me (that's what my psychiatrist told me, but I don't think it's true).

I do have a lot of problems with the sensory-overload. I can adapt myself and communicate in a normal way with people, but it's just very exhausting for me. I do understand what's considered 'normal' behaviour, and I know and can recognise how my behaviour effects others. I can see it when one of my friends is having a bad day, I can see how he/she is feeling. I have more trouble 'reading' emotions from people I don't know, but I think that's normal?

When you'd ask my friends to describe me, it would me kind, social, (medium) good listener, accepting people's differences and always trying to help others. My friends all reacted surprised when I told them I'm autistic, but they recognised it when I pointed out some other things that are difficult for me.

I think the stereo-type image many people have of autism is often not very truthfull.

No. I was completely socially blind until I was diagnosed (around 15). I had no concept of eye contact, facial expressions beyond basics, small talk, etc. I couldn't even figure out what made me different and it was glaringly obvious now.

I think it is social blindness. It's not like you can't overcome the blindness and realize how confusing and jumbled people are though. But maybe the root issue is a problem with awareness -- too aware of background sensory data, not aware enough or too aware of social nonsense.

I am in agreement with that hypothesis. I at least feel like I see every unintended facial movement and so on that other people make, and they are not meant by the wearer of these expressions to signify anything but they snuck through while the person was making a deliberate expression with common social currency. If that makes any sense. And I get stuck on these base-level flashes of their true feelings and this is the level at which one human being would be afraid of another human being because they are signifiers that one person might get violent with another, although this rarely happens in modern society.

I feel that autistics are more sensitive to what is going on. I never believed for second that I was unempathetic when I read about AS first learning I had it. I even asked my mother if I seemed unempathetic when I was younger and she said no. The psychologist I previously went to even said he never believed people on the spectrum lacked empathy, but were more in tune to it than neurotypicals. Anyone who says that autistics lack empathy is full of it.

Kamila and Henry Markram's Intense World Theory argues similarly:

"However, contrary to the deficit-oriented or disconnected Amygdala Theory and Theory of Mind of autism, we propose that the amygdala may be overtly active in autism, and hence autistic individuals may in principle be very well able to attend to social cues, feel emotions and even empathize with others or read their minds, but they avoid doing so, because it is emotionally too overwhelming, anxiety-inducing, and stressful."

"Moreover, in autistics, but not in controls, the amount of eye gaze fixation was strongly correlated with amygdala activation when viewing both, inexpressive or emotional faces (Dalton et al., 2005). This suggests that that eye gaze fixation is associated with emotional and possibly negative arousal in autistics and this could explain why autistics have “trouble looking other people in the eye.” Eye contact and watching the facial expressions are one of the first signs of cognitively healthy infants, are natural to people, and serve to build the basis for successful navigation through a social environment. For an autistic person however, these stimuli may be just too intense or even aversive to cope with and hence they are avoided."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... -00224.pdf

I am socially blind. I really do not see any facial expressions unless they are really obvious. I really are pretty clueless about how people react to me. It's not that I'm overwhelmed. I'm just blind.

Well for starters these were college students. They may have at one time in the past been more socially blind. I didn't have a clue about people until very recently. It depends on each person and the severity of their symptoms too. A ten year old child with AS might have more of an idea of social rules and reading body language verses me as a 10 year old.

I think when we began to learn more social skills we get far more knowledge out of it than NT's, who it comes naturally to. But we still can't express ourselves like they can. It's a knowledge in our heads that overwhelms us, as well as the sensory stimuli that's in the room at the time.
That's my theory. I'm still working on it.

I'm not diagnosed but I reckon I am socially blind, I notice less than I miss.
I have always been told by friends and family that I lack empathy too..

ASD lack social skills and empathy in the "colorblind" sense rather than total blindness. What it boils down to is accuracy and consistency. Human emotions, like colors of the rainbow, melt and flow into each other forming a spectrum. When one speaks of ASD as being socially blind, it is usually meant that they lack the ability to accurately and consistently distinguish between different emotions and act accordingly.Similar to how people who are colorblind can not always distinguish between similar colors.

The colors of the rainbow, red, green, yellow, etc. are not sharply delineated. They flow from one into each other without a clear start or ending point. However, people without colorblindness will clearly call a particular color by a consistent name. They recognize that greenish yellow is totally different from yellow green and dark orange is distinct from light red. The names of colors, like most social behaviors are not set by nature, but are learned by cultural norms and adhered to as is, whether one likes it or not.

ASD fail badly at things like empathy not so much that they don't have it, but because they do not fully grasp the appropriateness or the correlation between emotions and behavior.
If someone is sad, you should change your behavior around them and also the manner in which you speak to them. This does not mean that you should be sad too, or that you should go out of your way to cheer them up. When you empathize with someone, you modify your own behavior in order to not add additional burden to the person's suffering.
If a couple splits up after an argument, you should be careful not to speak the name of the other person when you are around one of them, nor allow any reference about the other party to be uttered. It shows respect when you modify your behavior in order to help the grieving person forget the other. That shows that you empathize with the person, and so the person will do the same when you are in a similar situation.

Remember that it is YOU that is suppose to show empathy. Behavior and emotions are intrinsically linked BETWEEN people. Each person will modify his/her behavior according to the emotions of the people around them, and each person in turn, change their emotions accordingly to the emotional state of the people they are around. The goal is harmony; To get everyone to not interfere with each other by saying something rude, or doing something stupid. But at the same time, we must still try to be ourselves. The main thing, is that there exists a link like a rope, that connects the emotions and behavior of everybody. If you are blindly pulling that rope, you'll be dragging someone's hope down, without even knowing it.

I think this topic is very interesting, there seem to be a lot of differences between people. Maybe it has something to do with the severeness of the ASD symptoms and the capability of the person to learn and adapt?

I like pascalflowers post, it emphasises the importance of learning these skills.

Reading all the posts I think I may be socially blind but not necessarily lack empathy, I just don't know how to use it properly.

I don't think I notice how people are feeling just by looking at them or if they are obviously unhappy then I would feel extremely uncomfortable for myself and would have no idea how to respond so would probably avoid them.

I understand that if a person is having problems at home they wouldn't feel rubbish and unenthusiastic at work but I wouldn't know if it is more rude to ask about it or not mention it all so I would go for the safe option and avoid them. If they don't appear bothered then I don't know if they are hiding it well, I'm missing it or I made the wrong assumption about how they must feel.

I am able to recognize facial expressions, but I am face blind

I have never recognize any emotion through body movements. Never.