(ELOG 4 for CS3790: Cognitive Science)
Last Tuesday we had a class discussing Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders. But… I wasn’t there. In light of this, I decided to read up on Autism and watch the video shown in class.
(The video is: The Mind of a Visual Thinker [youtube])
Temple Grandin is a fascinating person. Her talk (see video above) on visual thinking was a great look into the thought process of someone one the Autistic Spectrum. Apparently she doesn’t think in words like many people, but instead thinks completely in visual pictures. When she hears the word steeple, she doesn’t just call to mind attributes of steeples, or even a generic steeple, but actual pictures of steeples she has seen at some point.
To Grandin, the major feature tying together the various parts of the Autistic Spectrum, is that all have a different way of thinking about things from those that are not in the Autistic Spectrum. She mentions three specific ways of thinking that many in the Autistic Spectrum find themselves in. One is thinking in pictures, which is the way Grandin herself thinks. Others may think in patterns or even in sounds, but the common theme is that these people think in one way more exclusively, rather than being able to easily switch and relate the different ways of thinking.
The physiological causes of Autism have not been found, but the current theory of how the behavioral differences develop follows this model:
The idea being that the genetic and possible environmental factors lead to a difference in the way the brain develops, which affects how the person is able to think, and finally results in an observable difference in behavior. Work is currently being done to develop a model that explains exactly how this process occurs in a way that fits current evidence. (A Cognitive Model of Autism [cc.gatech.edu])
In understanding Autism Spectrum Disorders, we do important work not only in helping those with Autism survive in a world of what Grandin refers to as neurotypicals. but also in understanding how the mind in general works.
Comments are closed.