Thinking in pictures in autistic cognition

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Here are publications from Georgia Tech researchers about thinking in pictures in autistic cognition.

2009 Thinking in pictures poster
2011 Thinking in pictures paper

The general idea makes sense to me, and I do use visual strategies for doing pretty much everything. I also suck at doing things that involve a lot of verbal processing. For grocery shopping, I use a mental map instead of a written list. For planning, I use mental videos instead of written outlines. I find verbalizing incompatible with doing things, figuring out how to do things, and getting things done.

For reading, I see words as pictures. I learned to read in the 2-3 age range, but I had low comprehension until I learned to speak in the 8-9 age range, after which I started attaching meanings to words, and my comprehension shot up to the high 90s percentiles. Now, I apply both words as pictures and words with meanings strategies at the same time, and I read easiest by staring at whole sentences or paragraphs without subvocalizing, then translating into pictures and videos in my mind. My brain shuts down if I listen to too much speaking, such as during a meeting or from a TV show. I like to watch mute TV.

I took a verbal memory test using two different strategies. One was subvocalizing the word as a I saw it, and the other was memorizing the word as a picture. I scored low average when I subvocalized and in the high 90s percentiles when I memorized as a picture.

What about others? What do you think of thinking in pictures in autistic cognition?

The way you describe it, I also use visual techniques. Often times I do better when I just visualize what to do on a certain day for example, but I'm quite OK with to-do lists too. It's only I can better memorize it and go without a list when I use mental images.

Unfortunately my reading ability if far worse than yours, I need vocalizing (more with foreign languages) and I'm a slow reader, learned only later in my life to read (at around 7). I understand the translation part, I have it too.

I wonder if a more abstract style of thinking (thinking in patterns? or concepts?) is in relation with thinking in pictures. As I see it, I have some kind of thinking style that's not visual but still non-verbal, I like to think of it as a more abstract variant of visual thinking.

I think that I know what you are talking about. It is like there are concepts that I know without knowing their verbal representations and being able to communicate them to others. I think that I learned them from visuals. Whenever I learn anything new, I go through a period of first looking at pictures or videos or reading words that are translated into pictures and videos, then forming abstract concepts from lots of eggsamples of visuals, then applying verbal labels to the concepts, then creating a coherent narrative last. Even after all this, it is still a struggle to communicate what I have learned to others. I also find it difficult to apply knowledge that is presented to me as verbal rules, like math equations or science laws, without breaking down the verbal rules to what they mean in terms of pictures and building them up into verbal rules again. It seems to me that a lot of people operate at the level of the verbal rules instead of the picture or object manipulations underlying the verbal rules. I think that most of the K-12 curriculum operates this way, and this makes it difficult for many autistic children to learn things in school.

I wonder where that leaves me. As far as I can tell I don't think in pictures at all. In fact I have virtually no visualization ability. My thoughts are almost exclusively words and concepts. It rather envy most people's ability to 'see' things in their heads.

Oddly I do reasonably well in tests that are designed to test your ability to recognize shapes and patterns that have been rotated in various directions. Instead of using visual processing I use a mix of logic, maths and physics.

I strongly think in pictures and "films" in my mind.
If I do not have a picture for a word, I miss the word.
What I feel as a problem for executive function, what I am quite impaired in, is that I go too much into picture's or film's detail and from there a row of associaton is starting, where I loose the point of what my first intention was.
So if I think about "doing laundry", I see the wash going into the washing machine, the turning you see inside reminds me on an aircraft turbine, which reminds me on being a child watching my model-aircrafts, which make me see the room of my childhood, the birds I had, seeing birds outside, seeing me outside as a child daydreaming or riding my bike etc.
I get everyday lost in this and I cannot build up "common sense", that's what people tell me, but I cannot stop thinking in pictures and I cannot stop it making associations.

I think that the picture-thinkers are only a subset of people on the spectrum. It is interesting that some autistic people use non-visual strategies to do things that other autistic people and most typical people do using visual strategies.



Oh yes! I do this too, making endless associations and failing to think linearly towards a goal.

Last edited by btbnnyr on 04 Jun 2012, 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes. Also, I try to find / draw analogies between concepts. I see that not many people do this the same way as I do it. Mathematical concepts, equations are not that hard for me, because I have some kind of semi-visual conceptualization of them. Good examples for this are basic laws of physics, like gravity, for example. There's a connection between the visual image and the equation (inverse square, the surface of an inflating ball while it has an unchanged amount of paint on it (mass), or it's like a balloon).

I think I use some hybrid form of thinking. For some things I think out more visually--like, if I'm planning out where I'm going the next day, I plot a mental map of where I need to go, and the route to take. I can use grocery lists, but I need to put them in order of where I'd find them in the store: produce, then juice, coffee, butter, milk, cereal, canned vegetables, pasta, etc... When I see the item on the list--say, "orange juice"--I don't just think of the concept of orange juice or some generic jug containing it; I think of the specific type of orange juice I get, and where it's located in the store. When I recall something from the past, I can "see" it in my mind, and even pull out certain minute details. If I'm trying to remember something I read, I'll often visualize where I read it. If I think of something I read on Wikipedia, for instance, I might visualize where on the Wikipedia page that fact was from.

For more abstract things, I tend to think more verbally--or at least more abstractly, though even then there may be a visual component to my thought process. If I'm thinking of an article I'm working on (I'm a writer and editor by trade), I might organize it using an outline, but I'll also be able to see how it might look when it's published to the website I work for.

I don't know...I can't say I spend a lot of time thinking about how I...well...think.

Temple Grandin said there are generally three types if autistic thinkers, with considerable overlap: picture thinkers, math thinkers (abstract), and verbal thinkers.

The verbal thinking I would call story or narrative thinking, and that's generally where I'm at.

So it might be an interesting question if there is a connection between "thinking in pictures" and executive (dys-)function versus "thinking verbally" and executive (dys-)function, because I sometimes think that if I could think more verbally that I maybe had less problems with executive function as I would not get lost in the detail- and association-process as described above all the time and I mean all the time, but maybe it does exist in verbally thinking as well?

edit: reading the post above from AardvarkGoodSwimmer including abstract-thinking as well.

I find your grocery shopping comment interesting. I basically do the same thing and when I do make an actual written list, I tend to organize it by grocery store sections.

For tasks that autistic people and typical people both perform visually, such as visual search, I think that autistic people do bester because they can see moar search items in the search field with their brrrainzzz at the same time, so there is less searching, item-by-item, for them to do. I find it verry merry berry easy to find street names on city maps, because I see a lot of the stuff on the map all at once. I find it hard to come up with a set of verbal driving directions for other people to follow based on the map that I see in my mind. All the parts are there on the map, and I know where I am and where I am going while thinking of the picture of the map, but it is hard for me to sequence the visual information into verbal steps, one-by-one and a bunch in a row, to communicate with others. I am good at telling others to turn here while we are driving down the street, then here, then here, but I suck at telling others all the steps in one coherent narrative. It seems to be the number of steps that is the problem for me. I am bad at holding the verbal sequence of too many steps in my mind, but I am good at holding the picture of the map with many parts all at once.

In a similar task I would be the other way round. I am not good at finding things visually and I get lost very easily because I can't hold a picture of where I am in my mind. I am pretty good at sequencing and planning but I need to write it down because I have pretty poor memory.

I think Tony Attwood has a good point when he says the autistics tend towards extremes. They tend to be either very good at something or very bad at it. Your very visual thinking and my almost completely non-visual thinking are good examples.

Ultimately the core of my thinking doesn’t have a feature like words or pictures… But in the way thinking is generally perceived as a somewhat conscious attempt, I also think in 3D films or pictures. Like if I think about some problem the answer is "a film of the answer" or me “doing the answer”. Pictures emerge easily without any conscious attempt of “thinking”. This can be a problem, since school and university seem to be based on a tradition of philosophical and verbal reasoning. You have to always give some sort of a formula or a way to your answer. “It just appeared as a picture without a road to the scenery revealed. I was just suddenly standing there...” isn’t an answer enough in that setting.

Reading words evokes pictures, but it is not a fully parallel association word --> image (like I saw myself in a store confused with a shopping list and so on while reading your text btbnnyr). I have learned to think verbally late in life and it is still mere “talking” to me. If I think with words, I literally talk by myself. I haven’t learned to internalize it and if I manage to do that, it is still just “talking” in my head – not really thinking. I even imagine the listener and in public make sure that my mouth keeps shut. But when I “really” think, it is either with that ungraspable brain “depth” without a feature or with pictures.

My thinking is also very associative like someone else described above. Pictures evoke other pictures and all this happens (unfortunately) without effort and very fast. So at times I am like a captive in a train of thoughts – but what a scenery it has been! Sometimes you can almost see how your brain stores information just by rewinding back… And plus it is a show I got the first row seats!

Last edited by VisInsita on 05 Jun 2012, 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

I once read that most autistics think visually, whereas those with Non-verbal Learning Disorder have the visual part of their brain in dysfunction, and so think verbally. But I think verbally mainly, and don't think I have NVLD Anyone else know anything about this?

That pretty much describes me as well.