Two-Factor Imagination Scale

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I am still confused by the distinction between imagination and creativity.

Ganondox, this site has a two factor imagination scale that autocalculates for you:

http://www.aspietests.org/

It's still overly subjective. Also, there is one major problem that I just realized: controlled imagination is more rememberable than spontaneous imagination unless the spontaneous imagining was particularly shocking or you are trying to be spontaneous due to the passive versus active approaches. This can been seen in that lucid dreams are more memorable than random ones unless the random one struck a chord. The more you interact with an imagining, the more you remember it, and the more control you take over it. The active mind remembers more than the passive mind. The more you think about imagination, the more controlled it seems as you are controlling it when you think about imagining. Maybe I'm wrong about all of this, but maybe I'm not. The more I think about it the more confused I get.

Btw, I got 54, though I don't trust as I tend to skew my answers to the side I want. This test was expecially bad as it was all "less" or "more". All this metacognetion is making me confused. Anyway, I'm happy the way I am.

48.

BTW, screw you test for forcing me to do manual scoring.

This test and manual scoring and the fact that I feel like I did this test wrong, since I don't control my imagination my imagination just comes to me. I have an idea and feel the need to write, but I got a score of 59. But I don't go through any of the processes that control my imagination.

If my calculations are correct, I scored a 50, indicating proportionate controlled/ spontaneous information. I do some creative writing (primarily children's stories) and have been told by the few people who have read my work that my stories could be published. Perhaps they could, if I only had the executive function to embark upon and follow through with the process involved. I suspect there needs to be some balance between these types of imagination if one is to engage in a meaningful way in any creative process.

Don't worry, you aren't the only one. Even the experts struggle to work out what exactly is going on.

I scored 42. A bit surprised by that, I thought (and still think) I had reasonably well developed powers of imagination. Though I'm not creative.

I assume that the NT population scores in the 'proportionate controlled/spontaneous imagination' or in the 'high spontaneous imagination' categories. What does it suggest then that over half of Aspie respondents are in the low spontaneous category? Might this be this the root of Asperger's?

I have low spontaneous imagination and that makes it hard for me to spontaneously detect the most important emotional values in social interactions. What is emotionally important doesn't come to me automatically, spontaneously and rapidly like it does with NTs who seem to know whats important without long mental deliberations.

I scored the same.

My spontaneous imagination is tied to music and sounds. Everything else (writing, pictures, any kind of visual and written arts) is not spontaneous to me. Reviving memories and expecting the future to be as one I don't count as imagination, even if I make some combinations with them. Such an 'imagination' is useless unless I step in and try to control the process.

Many tests for AS look for reduced imagination. Both ICD10 and DSMV mention a lack of imaginative play in children as one of the possible symptoms.

Alexithymia is a common co-morbid with autistic spectrum disorders and one of the defining characteristics of Alexithymia is a lack of spontaneous imagination. In fact this test was specifically developed to help diagnosing Alexithymia.

RazorEddie wrote

Thats really interesting that ICD and DSM both mention lack of imaginative play.

Found another study 'Alexithymia in Autism Spectrum Disorders: an fMRI Investigation', which I don't fully understand, that concludes alexithymia in HFA is the cause of difficulties in understanding and empathizing with other people, and that these are not the result of lack of theory of mind as we are constantly told. The study starts off by confirming, "individuals with ASD exhibit a greater degree of alexithymia than matched control participants, with 85% of the participants with ASD showing slight or severe alexithymic impairment compared to 17% of the control participants."

It goes on to conclude that difficulty representating another's emotional states (imagining them?) are caused by alexithymia, not by lack of mentalizing ability;

"In conclusion, this study aimed to explore the neural networks underlying alexithymia in participants with ASD. Two hypotheses were suggested; that general problems in the mentalizing network in individuals with ASD may result in an inability to introspect on internal emotional states, or that alexithymia may be related to an emotion-specific deficit associated with hypoactivity in the interoceptive cortex. Results supported the second hypothesis, suggesting that alexithymia is associated with a deficit of representing changes in internal bodily states evoked by emotion. Further, the findings may suggest that conscious awareness of emotional states may be carried out by different neural networks than those involved in reflecting on mental states, and that empathy, involving the representation of another’s emotional states, may be neurologically distinct from the representation of other people’s mental states."

Brings me back to the original question of whether lack of spontaneous imagination is the main tap root of AS?

I tried this at aspie tests this evening and scored 40 . I have to say I had difficulty with it as the questions seemed quite abstract.

I couldn't fill it out, as I had trouble understanding quite a few of the questions. I have very strong skills in imagination, though. Strange that I couldn't figure it out.

I got 60

56.

My imagination is often spontaneous, but I also use it to make scenarios of my choice. Also if I let it run too rampant it goes into directions I don't like sometimes. It's always nice when I realise that I'm in a nightmare and think "Oh, this isn't real" and then I can use magic powers to fight back against the axe wielding murder after me or something.