Hyper-sensitivity: Typical Range?

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I was reading Mr. Atwood's book and had two questions about his section on hypersensitivity.


Regarding taste, he had a somewhat vague comment that implied normally the gag reflex in the throat only triggers when there is a pysical object lodged in the throat, but that for aspies it can also trigger when food with a bad taste or texture is put in the mouth, even before it gets to the throat area.

1) So is that the case: having a gag reflex from the taste / texture of food alone if not normal?? I thought that happened to everyone.


He also had several examples that seemed very extreme to me. Like a kid who was able to uniquely identify one bus from another only from the sounds of their engines. Or a woman who could feel individual dust particles landing on her skin.

2) Are these extremes typical for Asperger's or an outlier even for Asperger's? If an outlier, what is the typical range of hypersensitivity intensity for Asperger's?

1) I believe a lot of people do this, but that it is more common among Aspies than NTs.

2) I'm not sure how you could quantify this.

It seems to me that anyone would have a gag reflex if something truly disgusting was in his/her mouth (like rotten food for instance). As to the other examples. I think it's a matter of degree and varies widely from person to person, at least among people with AS.

I found this interesting description of how sensory input is perceived by the average person. It describes the threshold of what the sense can perceive.

Approximate absolute sensitivities, expressed in everyday terms:

Vision – A candle flame seen at 30 miles on a dark, clear night
Hearing – The tick of a watch under quiet conditions at 20 feet
Taste – One teaspoon of sugar in two gallons of water
Smell – One drop of perfume diffused into the entire volume of a three-room apartment
Touch – The wing of a bee falling on your cheek from a distance of one centimeter

Source: http://mindhacks.com/2010/12/27/poetic-sensitivities/

That list is ABSOLUTE sensitivity, which is the absolute MINIMUM the human organs can sense in the most optimum conditions possible. You're literally dealing with the very limits of human perception there. NOT what is common among the average person, or even among hypersensitives, but what is comprehensibly possible.

Hypersensitivity is fundamentally a relative thing. The larger of a group of people that agrees that a certain stimulus IS or IS NOT bothersome, that is the standard you're judged by.

In real terms:
1.Your mother isn't bothered by the smell of cat food, but you ARE. That is a BAD case for hypersensitivity.
2. 200 unrelated people are not bothered by the smell of cat food, but you ARE. That is a GOOD case for hypersensitivity.

It all comes back to Hume. :P:P

If it's hard to quantify then giving examples of sensitivity might be helpful. Hypothetical examples:

Touch
* It is typical that an NT is comfortable wearing most anything you can buy.
* It is typical that an aspie will find a certain material uncomfortable but can live with it.
* It is atypical for some material to be so extreme to an aspie that it is unwearable.

Sight
* It is typical that an NT is comfortable without sunglasses most of the time.
* It is typical that an aspie will want to wear sunglasses even on an overcast day due to a slight squint from discomfort caused by the light.
* It is atypical for an aspie's sight to be totally incapacitated by the blinding sun without sunglasses.

Sound
* It is typical for an NT to hear music as a single blended asthetic sound.
* It is typical that an aspie will hear all the instruments as distinct sounds rather than a single blend.
* It is atypical of an aspie to have perfect pitch and be able to identify the make and model of a trombone by simply hearing its tone quality.

Are you saying that differences in sensitivity come down to whether one is bothered or not, or to what degree one is bothered, by a given stimulus? Because my understanding is that for hypersensitive people the actual stimulus is perceived differently, it's not just a matter of one's reaction to it. For instance, I have very sensitive skin, and I find blood tests extremely painful. I was told by an expert in AS that this is not normal, not because I just don't like blood tests or react to them badly but because the intensity of the pain is itself different.