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| Do you think visually or verbally? |
| Verbally |
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28% |
[ 26 ] |
| Visually |
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71% |
[ 65 ] |
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| Total Votes : 91 |
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| Author |
Message |
SamanthaBlake
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Mar 11, 2009
Age: 16
Posts: 32
Location: south florida,suberbia,swampland,the middle of nowhere
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 Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 1:31 am Post subject: |
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| my mode of thought changes often so it would be both. |
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alba
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 01, 2008
Posts: 927
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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| alba wrote: | | ....humanity remains ignorant as to how autistics translate their thoughts into communication. NTs may get the sense we are expressing something personal in a unique way. But the NTs, and we ourselves, remain clueless how to get it across in a way that can be easily understood. And of course, whatever method we are using is vital to our ability to communicate with the rest of the world. Stimming, and various forms of apparently bizarre movement, may be--for LFAs and others on the spectrum-- the only way we have of expressing how we think and feel and respond to our environment. |
How do autistics translate their thoughts into communication, and why is it so hard for NTs to get where we're coming from, without taking offense at our very existence?
Those of us on the spectrum may intuitively, naturally, and unconsciously think one way (non-linear)... and consciously-- with effort and socialization-- another way (linear). I feel that most, if not all, autistics process information (and therefore think) through CATEGORIES, PATTERNS, and VISUALIZATIONS independent of space-time, i.e., non-linear. Perhaps most on the spectrum are immensely more comfortable dealing with patterns and energy fluctuations unbound by space-time orientation---and this, generally, on an unconscious level. It may be due to the autistic neurological wiring (predisposing us to non-linear thinking) that we 1)fail to develop effective communication techniques, 2)fail to achieve meaningful relationships, and 3)lack proper social skills. Human-to-human interaction is undoubtedly rooted in space-time categories of linear information processing, which may be foreign to the way most autistics think.
Autistic problems with executive function, as well as communication, may arise as a result of difficulties with linear type processing, because the predominant NT thinking style is VERBALLY and VISUALLY linear. Low functioning autistics may be labeled that way precisely because of their inability to interface with linear type thinking. Therapies and invasive interventions, which make LFAs conform to social expectations through behavior modification--with little or no concern and respect for the autistic's core identity naturally deriving from neurological wiring adapted to function non-linearly--may be responsible for permanently disconnecting them from their real selves. If so, it would constitute severe psychological damage, mental and emotional torture. The trend is to intervene as early as possible, thereby fixing the autistic. It is arguably and possibly true, that the earlier this coercive intervention takes place, the more damaging it will be to the autistic's sense of self, and to their neurological wiring.
If NTs often find our existence offensive and intolerable, it may be due to the fact that they are simply unable to comprehend how we think and process information. Even the experts are challenged to understand precisely why autistics have so much difficulty with communication and socially fitting in. And those of us at WP have frequently found it very perplexing how we can be causing offense to others, almost before we say or do anything. |
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Icecypher
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Aug 23, 2009
Age: 29
Posts: 60
Location: Aguascalientes, Mexico
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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I can think visually. This is great when I want to draw something, because I can get the image of how I want the picture to look even before starting. I then simply draw what is already in my thoughts.
But then I can think verbally, as well.
I do this as a silent alternative of the talking-to-oneself thing I do a lot of the time. I think entire phrases, and, strangely enough, I almost always do it in English.
My mother tongue is Spanish, but from late childhood/ early teens most of my "social training" has been done through comic books. I guess that is why sometimes I have trouble thinking slang in my own language, when the first one to come to mind is in English. Then I say nothing because people would think I'm a snob for not speaking Spanish. Even if I do come with phrases in Spanish, they may follow English grammar sometimes, as my ex (who studied Letras Hispánicas in college) told me.
I did not vote for any option because I can do both. And I do both most of the time, or in turns. |
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rdos
Phoenix
Joined: Jul 07, 2005
Age: 48
Posts: 1112
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Hard poll to answer. I'm neither a visual thinker, nor a verbal. |
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Dilbert
Phoenix
Joined: Mar 30, 2009
Age: 36
Posts: 834
Location: Seattle
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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Both for me. I voted words because most of my thinking involves analyzing and debating and planning and prepration for the future.... most of that lends itself better to words.
I can also visualize pretty much anything I want. If I need to be creative or I'm fantasizing then I think in pictures. |
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Demon-Chorus
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Jun 29, 2009
Age: 25
Posts: 191
Location: Theatre of the Absurd (US sector)
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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I think both visually and verbally, I think in many different ways.
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The asylum is run by lunatics. |
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Jacoby
Deinonychus
Joined: Dec 11, 2007
Age: 18
Posts: 390
Location: West Allis
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't know. I've never been anybody else obviously so I don't know how I think differently. I guess I think visually if that's being able to picture something in your mind but I don't really know how unique that is. |
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duke666
Deinonychus
Joined: Aug 09, 2009
Posts: 379
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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I agree with Floyd about the associational links, at least in my brain.
I usually have a verbal monolog running through my head. I ignore it most of the time. It's pretty boring. So it seems I think verbally.
I don't see pictures in my head, and have trouble visualizing things clearly. So that seems to confirm verbal, not picture, right?
The problem is that I 'see' a faint pattern in my head most of the time when I'm thinking about a problem. It's very complex, and seems to be an associational logic 'diagram'. Parts of it fill in as the logic gets established, and it oozes and morphs around until it stabilizes. I can't see it clearly, but I have a sense of where it isn't complete, and focus on those areas, though I don't know what I'm focusing. When it fills in, the problem is actually solved, and all I have to do is 'copy' it out by translating it into language and drawings. It doesn't appear to be delusional <grin>, since I'm an engineer and the solutions get tested. It may just be an artifact and a focussing tool, though.
It's really hard to describe it because it's 'something else', and so we don't have language for it (yet).
_________________
"Yeah, I've always been myself, even when I was ill.
Only now I seem myself. And that's the important thing.
I have remembered how to seem."
-The Madness of King George |
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cosmiccat
Escapee - Fugitive - Drifter
Joined: Apr 06, 2007
Posts: 2624
Location: In someone else's room with no money
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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I use both methods, sometimes simultaneously, and sometimes I add a third element of music or melody - so I couldn't take your poll.
_________________
"I want to show that the dividing lines between sanity and mental illness have been drawn in the wrong place. The sane are madder than we think, the mad saner." Anthony Storr
“A woman must have money and a room of her own” Virgina Woolf
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polymathpoolplayer
Velociraptor
Joined: Aug 12, 2009
Posts: 468
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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| NowhereWoman wrote: | Verbally, except I get sort of visual "shadows" when I remember certain things...however, it is VERY hard for me to get a really clear visual, even when I'm trying.
The exception is days of the week and months of the year...I do physically see those, as numbers going along sort of a...rollercoaster. Don't ask. |
Perhaps you have Synesthesia (see numbers with colors or see things in roller-coaster geometrical patterns when they are just lists) |
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polymathpoolplayer
Velociraptor
Joined: Aug 12, 2009
Posts: 468
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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I hardly ever think in pictures, I'm mainly a Verbal/Math-Music-Pattern thinker (depending on whether I am involved in a math/music issue or not) and I also "hear" speeches from my memory and can get caught up in hearing in my mind "stimming" music (repeated phrases from favorite parts of songs/symphonies, etc.).
A weird spin on this is that I can make myself "see" my words as I think and also my words and those of others who speak to me in my mind's eye with correct spelling and punctuation left to right as the conversation is going on, although I can turn it off at a will! So maybe that's kinda like thinking in pictures, only the pictures are of letters not objects. |
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mechanicalgirl39
Phoenix
Joined: Apr 07, 2009
Posts: 1241
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| Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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Mostly visually, or with a kind of abstract "resonance". Like 3D structures in my head.
Sometimes I switch to verbal.
_________________
'You're so cold, but you feel alive
Lay your hands on me, one last time' (Breaking Benjamin) |
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alba
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 01, 2008
Posts: 927
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| Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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I believe most aspies and auties are pattern thinkers, but we do it unconsciously. It seems logical that many NT/Aspie engineers, computer techs, and scientists think in patterns. And the natural tendency to think in patterns, is undoubtedly inherited. It would seem to be a quality of brains geared more toward technical pursuits. The OP should have had patterns as an option in the poll. It's the reason I didn't vote. After being here for a year, this thread is, by far, the most important of any I've participated in. I feel it is absolutely vital that we spectrumites ascertain how we think, and that we do so as soon as is humanly possible. Be nice if it were made into a sticky.
Furthermore, in addition to being primarily pattern thinkers IMO....we think nonlinearly, meaning time and positioning with reference to 3 dimensional space, are foreign to us. We don't limit ourselves, or our thinking to 3 dimensions...nor does time, as conventionally viewed, have very much meaning for many of us.
I believe stimming results not so much from sensory issues, although it does, but even more it may result from having an excess of energy to disperse, after mental excursions into territory unbounded by local space/time restrictions.
Space and time, space/time, are mental categories, convenient for functioning in 3 dimensional social reality. Without those categories framing a natural basis for one's thoughts as well as perceptions, one would be rather lost in a world of people organizing their lives around those categories. There would be nothing for us to anchor to.
Having no anchor, IMO, is what defines us....and separates us. However, I also believe that we on the spectrum, share pattern thinking with technically oriented NTs. And this link is potentially a very powerful bond......that mitigates all our other differences in autistic function.
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Last edited by alba on Sun Sep 06, 2009 6:16 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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xalepax
Random Videomaker
Joined: Feb 25, 2009
Posts: 1850
Location: YouTube
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| Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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| sartresue wrote: | Thinking is seeing topic
I visualize so much and so often tht I stutter when I speak if I do not have the accompanying video in my thoughts.  |
Yeah the same with me!! I am all of an visually thinking and functioning aspie. And Im a fan of you, Your posts is so short and charming, easy to read
I cant read much text, reading photos is way easier and I can spend hours watching videos on YouTube...
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I am female and 35, these are My words: *be yourself and try your best*
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Silvervarg
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 26, 2009
Posts: 669
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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I use both, in everyday thinking it's verbal, but when it's too complicated to explain accuratly it automaticly moves over to visualized mode. It helps me see patters I wouldn't be able to "see" verbaly. I think this is shown by how I write, I always spell the way it sounds in my head. (That's why I frequently use double "l" in always and simliar words. ^^)
Mayby this is the communication block, as they say, an image say more then a thousend words, but what happens when you make a picture based upon one word alone? It's doomed to be flawded.
This would explain why aspies are known for using very exact language since we don't expect people to "see" what we mean (we don't do it ourselves either). And why NTs can't seem to comprehend that an aspie-face don't show emotions, if someone says "happy" they get an image in their mind of how someone who's happy looks like, and generaly we don't look like that.
On the other hand I could be completly off, it's 00:40 am here, so my brain isn't with me to 100%. (Or even 75%. ^^) Price to pay for being "social" the night before. ^^
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