A journey to social perfection? "My Brilliant Brain&quo

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Hi all!

I just watched a programme on National Geographic a week ago - "My Brilliant Brain"
And there was this chessmaster (a girl) who became so good because of her dad 'training' her since young. Through MRI scans, they found out she used the 'memory' part of her brain to play, instead of the logic part.

As we know, chess is a logic game, but she said that she was using her 'instincts' to play, which according to the MRI, were her memories and experience.

So what i'm driving at here is.. Could it be possible that if we (aspies) study human reactions, expressions and behaviors, that we can be as social-smart as 'regular people' (NT's)?

For example: they use the 'social' part of their brain while we use the 'memory' part of ours for social interactions. If done fluently, perhaps we could be social geniuses and at the same time, keep our strengths like hyperfocus and high intelligence..

What do you all think?

PS: You guys should read "The little prince", a novel written by a pilot who had a passion child-ish topics like dinosaurs and science. But because of the boring adult world, he was forced to 'adapt' to it and start talking about politics and current affairs. Even with that, he retained his inner child but now gained a new ability to talk to the not-so-interesting neurotypicals. I think its possible that the author has aspergers syndrome but has trained himself to be social-smart.

I think that in a lot of ways this is what I use to get through day to day. I am and have been obsessed with the human sciences for as long as I can remember, and I have a huge database of human reaction to draw on. In a sense I've taught myself how to be social by making up for the natural inclination by observing and making constant mental notes.

The thing is, that while I can do it with a surprising level of competancy, it still overwhelms me and I prefer to be alone or with a few people I connect with.

This is exactly what I was aiming at. But I'm a bit of a newbie here and have lost my way in this the past few months. I was reading this book called Emotional Intelligence and had bought a textbook on non-verbal communication.

Alei!! !

You seem to be knowledgeable about these things. Is there anything you would recommend? I would recommend Emotional Intelligece but if there are better sources, I would really like to know.

apparently that, (memory etc,) IS how aspies do "social", but as Alei says it uses up a lot of energy, and also is very bad at dealing with the unexpected. Also because we register/record the info in such a poorly organised way apparently it is slow and unwieldy, and whereas a chess game can be handled by a computer because of the finite number of possible moves, human interaction isn't finite.

To be honest I suppose I am self taught, I dont really do a lot reading about it just a bit here and a bit there and a lot of trial and error. The knowledge I have is a culmination of countless classes, many books, lots of websites, and 30 years of interaction, there isnt one source I could cite off the top of my head. Sorry.



I have to say that I dont think the information I have poorly organized at all, its just a matter of being able to access it. Because it doesnt come naturally to me and is instead stored information processing can slow down if there are too many other things on the go. Think of it like a computer, well organized but if you have too many other programs running it can slow down the reaction time a bit.

No, apparently it is, it's one of the features of AS brains, is that they find in scans that when an AS is required to retrieve information more of the brain lights up; the data is all scattered about compared to NTs brains where is more bunched together. Answering the same question involves collecting from more areas of brain in an aspie/AS than an NT.
This may, MAY, also be why AS have more creative brains because make more links across areas, BUT it is less efficient for daily info retrieval. Imagine if spread the pages of a book all round the room and had to go round whole room rather than just the bookcase to find the contents of that book!!

I see what you are saying, perhaps I just dont think its poorly organized because I am so used to it When they told me I have OCD I told them that meant Organized Chaos Defined and that would support your thoery.

My computer analogy still works, it can be really hard to sit down and fix a computer someone else programmed. I feel that I can access the information easily, the speed depends on the number of other programs running, but I can understand how it could come across as disorganized to someone else.

My brain might be lighting up all over, but after 30 years I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea where the right books are. I am OCD after all.

Amazing!

This truly backs up the 'your destiny is in your own hands' quote.
I guess we aspies are just dealt with different cards in life than NT's and if done correctly, we can still be all aces.

I think that we all completely use the memory part of our brains to navigate social situations!

I have this theory (and am now in the middle of Temple Grandin's book and understanding how she thinks) that we all utilize a kind of card system to relate to social things. We take a given situation and make a card for it. Then as we experience things we add a thread to another card that tells us how to behave. For example....Situation A happens so reaction 1...doesn't work, so we interpret the problem and then build a new card with one of those big red "NO!" signs on it. Situation A happens, reaction 1 will not work, so reaction 2. We just go on like that building up a spiderweb of cards that we flip through until the current situation mirrors a card close enough to warrant that reaction.

I think that this explains, at least for me, why sometimes it takes me such a long time to figure out how to deal with given situations, I have to flip through all those damn cards until something is close enough to give me the idea of how to behave. By the time I figure it out, it's sometimes too late.

I think that this also explains why some of us seem to get better at navigating social situations with age. We have built up a pretty gigantic library in our brains. It also explains why some of us get shorter tempered with social situations because we have built up this huge library, but are either unable to process what card works for that situation or we are tired of the rules changing and us being unable to have a good card because of the ever changing rules.