If autistic people are more literal, whats the causality?
Are they using more direct language because they're so used being misunderstood they try to streamline their thoughts to limit the chance of miscommunication? Are they more careful about metaphors because they want to be sure of its meaning? Meaning that may have drifted from its original usage, like how Nimrod was known as a great hunter until Bug Bunny used it sarcastically and now it just mean moron.
Hohsia [any] - 1mon
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve noticed that “taking things literally” is subjective in and of itself. It sometimes feels like it’s not a matter of neurotypical vs neurodivergent but ostensibly carelessness vs carefulness but I also think this relates to how people in general behave differently when in a group. I’ve definitely noticed this very clearly in corporate work settings.
One thing I can’t get past though (that people have admitted) is how pretending to be nice to someone when you’re not interested in what they’re talking about is apparently “kind” but politely disengaging is rude. Something something fake it until you make it I guess
25
invalidusernamelol [he/him] - 1mon
One thing I can’t get past though (that people have admitted) is how pretending to be nice to someone when you’re not interested in what they’re talking about is apparently “kind” but politely disengaging is rude.
I think that's a lot of it. The nicety thing is a social construct that's learned. I love in the South and it's literally just how you speak to people here. Pass a random person on the street and you both say "how's it going?" Even though both of you know the other one doesn't actually care.
I think that part of things just isn't as easy to pick up on for some people, and it doesn't make much sense. If you press anyone that participates in it they'll also agree that it doesn't make much sense, but it's just how you act.
10
DasRav [any, any] - 1mon
I will always remember my first boss taking my explanation of a problem as me trying to explain why it's not my fault that the problem exists. Very consistently so. I hated that guy.
13
daniyeg [he/him] - 1mon
not necessarily in conflict with other explanations, but i've read before that research suggests neurons in autistic brains have strong local neural connectivity but noisier long-range synchronization, or in other words they have a strong "local-to-local interface" alongside a weak "global-to-local interface". autistic people are not diagnosed with brain scans though, the important part is that this results in a preference for local processing and bottom up thinking, rather than global processing and top down thinking. that doesn't necessarily mean the literal meaning gets interpreted first and then the brain starts processing contextual guesses, but it reaches conscious awareness faster and more dominantly. depending on your mental load it's not difficult to grasp neurotypical nuances, but literal communication is preferred because it's well suited for the bottom up thinking preference.
12
Da Cap’n - 1mon
No, we quite literally cannot understand nuisance in conversation (social situations). It’s all of the unwritten socials rules that go over our heads, because by and large we can’t compute. Social rules don’t go by any sensible rules, they’re all subjective and nonsense dancing around people’s feelings and emotions and most of use have alexythmia.
12
TreadOnMe [none/use name] - 1mon
To be precise, social rules are sensible (in that you can literally feel them out), they just aren't always logically deducible (If A is C, and B is C, then A is B) from immediate information, moreover, the logical deduction process of social rules usually relies on cultural or personal logic and context that is outside of the autistic person's knowledge, and Autistic people can be extremely resistant (as can Allos) to incorporating that knowledge into their interactions.
Autistic people can, by and large, understand social nuances within their own culture, if they are taught that specific things are done for specific reasons with a specific intent, but they will then struggle in a slightly different context that is outside of what they understand, being unable to sense and then clearly deduce the proper response to the situation from just interpreting the responses of others around them.
And this all depends on the level of cognitive functionality as well.
Much of the issue boils down to that logic only has to be internally consistent, which means many sets of logic can hold true to themselves simultaneously, but contradict each other, and that is where the ambiguity sets in because it is entirely subjective because there is no universal logical response. You have to understand the values and mores held by that person, and even then, that person may not be socially acting in accordance to those values and mores.
8
AssortedBiscuits [they/them] - 1mon
Social rules don’t go by any sensible rules, they’re all subjective and nonsense dancing around people’s feelings and emotions and most of use have alexythmia.
Social rules don't make sense, but they're anything but nonsense. The whole point of social rules is to establish in-group/out-group. Viewed from this light, social rules cannot make logical sense because if they actually did make logical sense, someone from the out-group would easily figure it out and be able to infiltrate into the in-group. Social rules that actually make sense would be encrypting messages with ROT13 which is trivial to decrypt.
This also means someone with good social skills^TM^ is essentially someone who can decode the arbitrary social rules a certain social group uses to exclude outsiders and blend in within that group despite being an outsider themselves.
7
pancake @lemmygrad.ml - 1mon
The autistic (and not only) brain doesn't handle ambivalence for concepts at an intuitive level, only at a logical one. So for example an autistic person may logically understand that a discourse can have a hidden meaning, or that other people have distinct mental states from them, or that someone's intentions may not align with theirs, but there's no way to represent those facts as intuition because they all require ambivalence (in other words, you need the same object to exhibit opposite properties at once).
9
Gorillatactics [none/use name] - 1mon
How they do with fiction?
6
Clocks [She/They] - 1mon
I personally love fiction, It's structured pretty well, and because the nuances are written down, I can digest and enjoy it far more.
Gorillatactics in neurodiverse
If autistic people are more literal, whats the causality?
Are they using more direct language because they're so used being misunderstood they try to streamline their thoughts to limit the chance of miscommunication? Are they more careful about metaphors because they want to be sure of its meaning? Meaning that may have drifted from its original usage, like how Nimrod was known as a great hunter until Bug Bunny used it sarcastically and now it just mean moron.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve noticed that “taking things literally” is subjective in and of itself. It sometimes feels like it’s not a matter of neurotypical vs neurodivergent but ostensibly carelessness vs carefulness but I also think this relates to how people in general behave differently when in a group. I’ve definitely noticed this very clearly in corporate work settings.
One thing I can’t get past though (that people have admitted) is how pretending to be nice to someone when you’re not interested in what they’re talking about is apparently “kind” but politely disengaging is rude. Something something fake it until you make it I guess
I think that's a lot of it. The nicety thing is a social construct that's learned. I love in the South and it's literally just how you speak to people here. Pass a random person on the street and you both say "how's it going?" Even though both of you know the other one doesn't actually care.
I think that part of things just isn't as easy to pick up on for some people, and it doesn't make much sense. If you press anyone that participates in it they'll also agree that it doesn't make much sense, but it's just how you act.
I will always remember my first boss taking my explanation of a problem as me trying to explain why it's not my fault that the problem exists. Very consistently so. I hated that guy.
not necessarily in conflict with other explanations, but i've read before that research suggests neurons in autistic brains have strong local neural connectivity but noisier long-range synchronization, or in other words they have a strong "local-to-local interface" alongside a weak "global-to-local interface". autistic people are not diagnosed with brain scans though, the important part is that this results in a preference for local processing and bottom up thinking, rather than global processing and top down thinking. that doesn't necessarily mean the literal meaning gets interpreted first and then the brain starts processing contextual guesses, but it reaches conscious awareness faster and more dominantly. depending on your mental load it's not difficult to grasp neurotypical nuances, but literal communication is preferred because it's well suited for the bottom up thinking preference.
No, we quite literally cannot understand nuisance in conversation (social situations). It’s all of the unwritten socials rules that go over our heads, because by and large we can’t compute. Social rules don’t go by any sensible rules, they’re all subjective and nonsense dancing around people’s feelings and emotions and most of use have alexythmia.
To be precise, social rules are sensible (in that you can literally feel them out), they just aren't always logically deducible (If A is C, and B is C, then A is B) from immediate information, moreover, the logical deduction process of social rules usually relies on cultural or personal logic and context that is outside of the autistic person's knowledge, and Autistic people can be extremely resistant (as can Allos) to incorporating that knowledge into their interactions.
Autistic people can, by and large, understand social nuances within their own culture, if they are taught that specific things are done for specific reasons with a specific intent, but they will then struggle in a slightly different context that is outside of what they understand, being unable to sense and then clearly deduce the proper response to the situation from just interpreting the responses of others around them.
And this all depends on the level of cognitive functionality as well.
Much of the issue boils down to that logic only has to be internally consistent, which means many sets of logic can hold true to themselves simultaneously, but contradict each other, and that is where the ambiguity sets in because it is entirely subjective because there is no universal logical response. You have to understand the values and mores held by that person, and even then, that person may not be socially acting in accordance to those values and mores.
Social rules don't make sense, but they're anything but nonsense. The whole point of social rules is to establish in-group/out-group. Viewed from this light, social rules cannot make logical sense because if they actually did make logical sense, someone from the out-group would easily figure it out and be able to infiltrate into the in-group. Social rules that actually make sense would be encrypting messages with ROT13 which is trivial to decrypt.
This also means someone with good social skills^TM^ is essentially someone who can decode the arbitrary social rules a certain social group uses to exclude outsiders and blend in within that group despite being an outsider themselves.
The autistic (and not only) brain doesn't handle ambivalence for concepts at an intuitive level, only at a logical one. So for example an autistic person may logically understand that a discourse can have a hidden meaning, or that other people have distinct mental states from them, or that someone's intentions may not align with theirs, but there's no way to represent those facts as intuition because they all require ambivalence (in other words, you need the same object to exhibit opposite properties at once).
How they do with fiction?
I personally love fiction, It's structured pretty well, and because the nuances are written down, I can digest and enjoy it far more.