A functionally autistic woman, Temple Grandin, wrote a fascinating book on autism. She offered a simple test for autism. Think of a church steeple (stop and do that).
If you thought of a real steeple you had actually seen then you probably tend towards autism. If you thought of an abstract non-existing steeple then you don't tend towards it.
I was at a gathering of employees in my company. There were about a dozen random people sitting around a table. I tested the whole group at once. Every single programmer answered with a real steeple and every non-programmer thought abstract.
I know this doesn't represent a real study and chance was involved. But it matches something else she said. Functional autistics with jobs are predominantly programmers. She quoted a number, like 70%, but I don't remember for sure.
I, a programmer, personally prefer human interaction on the web. Meeting in real-life, not so much.
This was my first thought. I imagined a steeple but how would that mean any sort of diagnosis? Simply: it wouldn't.
Besides the latest research on autism defines it as a hugely vast spectrum. So vast that I thought many were thinking everyone is technically on the spectrum.
I'd say it still starts at zero, even if the zero itself doesn't correspond to anything physical. Everything not quite zero still corresponds to something that may actually exist. mHz (small m) radio waves are real things.
> even if the zero itself doesn't correspond to anything physical.
Good point. Zero stones don't physically exist. That is why it took so long for cultures to include zero as a number. I read an entire book about zero (and one each about pi, e, infinity, and sqrt(-1)).
Hmm. One could define DC to be a wave with zero frequency and most equations would work correctly. You often define a value at a singularity as a fixed value because that fixed value is approached as you get closer and closer. I personally have no problem thinking of a wave with zero amplitude.
Hmm. Maybe. I think you can have a wave whose frequency is effectively zero for practical purposes, but in the most literal sense, a wave is defined by oscillation. In the case of EM in particular, I think the uncertainty principle says that a photon can't have zero energy, and thus can't have zero frequency (though it can be immeasurably low).
We're not talking about AC frequencies here. Electromagnetic waves are different. The only 0-frequency EM wave is literally "no wave". Nothing happening.
For one, it only tests what people say and they answer only what they think they were thought. Secondly, imagining an image doesn't preclude parallel abstract thought.
What if you imagine a steeple that you've never seen?
Over-analyzing myself. I think Kant stared out at a church steeple for a lot of his life. And that was memorable to me in college. I've hardly ever gone to church. So I don't have many images. I imagined some sort of steeple as seen from across the street like Kant might've seen. But with a clear blue sky background.
My steeple was steep too in case that helps. Kidding aside I think how we visualize things hardly has binary correspondence with anything, let alone autism. But probably it has some correlation.
How we visualize things and process memory is right in the heart of what's different about an autistic mind. She wrote an entire book about it, "Thinking in Pictures".
> If you thought of a real steeple you had actually seen then you probably tend towards autism. If you thought of an abstract non-existing steeple then you don't tend towards it.
Autistics tend to be very literal, concrete thinkers who like precision and aren't great at generalizing between different situations. I'm not sure if that answers your question, but as an autistic person the steeple thing makes sense to me.
Interesting question. I don't know enough about topology to say for sure, but I would think it's the kind of abstract thinking that autistics are good at, rather than the kind we're bad at. (See my reply to mchahn for details on that.) We tend to perceive individual properties rather then gestalts, which makes us good at picking out details but bad at synthesizing those details; my brain readily puts, say, a donut and a pipe into the category of "things with one hole through them," so it's an easy step for me to understand them as being topologically identical.
I have no idea. One would think the opposite, that programmers think in abstract concepts. I heard an interview with her on public radio (it was called in since she couldn't appear in person) and she seemed very intelligent and believable.
"Abstract thinking" is a huge category and a lot of Aspies and people in the autism ballpark have trouble with some parts and are good at other parts.
In particular, I think many of us are good at abstract thought that is formal. Not formal in the sense of wearing a tie or whatnot, but formal in the sense of being based on precisely described relationships. Take math. Math is a creative activity, just as much as painting or any other art. But math is a formal creative act. Like a painting, a mathematical proof can be beautiful, elegant, inspiring. Unlike a painting, a mathematical proof can be wrong.
Or take computer programming. Again, writing a program is creative and a program can be beautiful. But a program is written in a very formal language: Any computer language has strict rules.
On the other hand, many of us are bad at abstract thinking that is informal or, perhaps, a good word is mushy. How do we read a person's facial expression, body language etc? The same thing means different things at different times; there rules, but there are (usually) exceptions; and the rules aren't written.
The very, very first image that flashed into my mind was not a real steeple or an abstract one, but the gesture for a steeple that you can make with your hands (https://janellrardon.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/facebook-st...). I think the reason is that I hadn't read the entirety of your first line (three sentences), but rather had just seen a few keywords and was "filling in the blanks" as I read the line in detail again. I think my mind just conjured up a random memory involving a steeple of some sort (someone showed me that gesture as a kid).
Unfortunately, I already saw your spoiler in the next paragraph before I re-did the exercise.
> People who don't see steeples often will probably think abstractly and people who do probably won't as much.
I live about a mile from a church [0], so thought of that first. I've also seen the Crooked Spire in Chesterfield [1] a few times, so thought of that as well.
On the other hand, ask me to think of, say, a skyscraper, and I'll picture a abstract building. There may be some merit to the test, but I share your thoughts that it'll be changed by people's experiences.
I thought of (visualised quick 1-2 second videos) a church steeple people make with their fingers and wiggle the digits as if people are inside...
It's a real-life instance of our cultures abstraction of the steeple into something concrete using our hands. I'm unsure what category that would really fall into (I'm guessing that is a 70% 'real steeple' category instance?)
So I thought of a specific steeple but I couldn't picture it. In fact I can't picture a steeple in detail in my head at all. Is the visual detail an aspect? I now realize I have no idea how other people think.
Spoiler: I am almost certainly not very autistic if I am at all. Or so I come off to others.
Interesting. This is the first I've heard of this. I think I have a mild case of this condition to be honest. I can imagine away like the rest of people I guess, but when I actually try and visualize something, I don't see it, not like in a dream or anything close to real life. If I close my eyes and imagine a candle with flame, with great effort I can start to see it, but it's faded on the sides (surrounded by darkness) and I can't ever get it to flicker like a real flame. I can "imagine" a candle though, and the flame is flickering, but I don't actually see anything.
Dreams are vivid and nearly real, at least that's my impression of them when I wake up, my imaginings or "Day dreams" are nowhere near as vivid, and I certainly can't see the details of my wife, kid or anything or anybody else on the level of "seeing an image of them."
When I am making a grocery list, I often walked around the store in my head, and check the various sections against the stuff in the fridge and pantry.
You are saying you don't visualize locations you are not at when navigating, organizing things, or trying to remember where you last left something?
That almost sounds like you have photographic memory. I do have a good spatial sense, and combined with a fairly decent memory, I can remember where certain things are, but if it's items I've never bought or looked at, I can't just bring it into memory like looking at a picture of it. I don't even really see the shelf, I just go to that spot on the shelf in my memory and think what was there. It's location only, I don't see anything.
When I draw something, I call up a shape from memory (more like a series of explanations of a shape rather than seeing the shape). Probably why I can draw simple things, and not always 100% the same way - I'm not drawing it from a mental image, I'm just thinking about the shape of something.
After reading this though, I'm amazed that people can visualize things so well and am kind of jealous. I've gotten by and other than not having a great drawing ability, it doesn't impact my enjoyment of books or anything like that.
I use it to make sure I haven't missed anything that I would want to buy in the grocery store, or in order to orient myself in space, or to determine where I may have left something by replaying my actions in that space.
I literally highlighted the term, right click, "Search Google For..." and hit image search just to make sure they were talking about a spire. So then I had the images I had seen on Google Image Search in my head.
You can infer what the steeple is, but it isn't an often used term for a spire around here.
Not neccessarily. I know I pictured a real steeple (One that exists, and I have seen), and I know I pictured an abstract steeple (A rather quaint generalisation); it is simply that I am unable to discern the order that they were imaged in.
I had the same thought, combined with a mental visualization of the hands in that position. I think it might be something in the wording of the sentence...
Yeah, I was kinda expecting the line of reasoning to be "If you imagined the part where you go 'where are all the people?' then you are autistic, but if you imagined the part where 'there are all the people!' then you are not autistic."
> I imagined a real steeple, but not a specific one that I have seen before. What does that make me?
I have no idea why you're being downvoted. The notion of 'abstract' here is vague.
I thought of a red-brick steeple attached to a church surrounded by trees and a gravel parking lot (yes, this was all split second). This steeple wasn't a specific one I've seen, but it wasn't as abstract as thinking of the metaphor or a sparse geometric object.
This is similar to something I heard a psychologist say about mental illness. His test was to ask subjects "How did you come to be here today?" (with "here" being the treatment facility) and they would usually answer "In a car".
I don't remember what type of mental illness he was referring to, but it was probably autism.
My thought process on seeing that question was roughly "you are asking how, not why -> could be a relevant question [for example, public transport -> probably no issues in crowds] -> answer with 'by car'". I doubt I'd've gone straight to the "why am I here?" answer.
Then again, I do suffer with some degree of mental illness (OCD/anxiety), so maybe it is working as intended...
The obvious issue is that the person is taking the question very literally instead of answering the intended question. I could see how you could think that was a form of Autism, but for some reason the schizophrenia idea is stuck in my head.
I know this was probably an unintentional statement but it's important, especially as humanity grapples with the issue of better integrating neuro-atypicals into our societies.
At the low end of functioning, autism is most certainly an illness. There are ASD people with no ability to speak, repetitive behaviors, and comorbidity with other illnesses (such as gastrointestinal issues).
While I respect the desire to not stigmatize those who can function with some adjustments (on both their part and those of society's), it is imprecise to suggest that no ASD person has mental illness. To do so seems counter-productive, since it makes many people dismiss your legitimate concerns.
What is it then? I would have used the same description (I don't mean to be insensitive, but I don't really see why autism doesn't fall in that category).
They might want you to call it a "developmental disorder", which is fair, but nerdy. Or a "physical illness affecting the brain".
The idea that there's a difference is sort of problematic since the mind and the body are the same thing, and it's not falsifiable either unless you can test someone's brain for autism without going through their mind.
There's also a popular claim among tumblr-type people that autism is good and that charities looking for "cures for autism" are evil. Probably not what they meant though.
This test seems incorrect to me. Do you have any sources or was there any research that was done that could back up something like this? Are there actual tests for testing people that are functional autistics? Seems like it should be possible, but I'm not sure how you'd go about it.
What would an abstract non-existing steeple look like?
I mean I see steeples all the time living in Vermont and New York. So it was pretty easy to imagine one of these pretty white steeples when you asked this question.
Now I'm trying to picture the opposite. Just can't think of one.
If you'd prefer not to watch it, let me try to explain. For this test, I think of an abstract church-y building (I dunno .. maybe like the size of an old schoolhouse), and then think of a small tower with something pointy on top.
When Temple describes it (see her TED talk(s), seriously!), she talks about how, in contrast, she (and frequently other autistic people) imagine a VERY concrete steeple. Concrete as in, you an describe that it's iron on top of brick, with a wooden border along the bottom. You can describe the pattern of ironwork, the guy holding a wheelbarrow on its weathervane, the color of the paint, and the fact that it's been bent from when some local teens
NONE of those things are in my first imagined visual image of "steeple". Sure, I can make that kind of thing up, but my natural inclination is not to do so, and I don't remember any specific images of steeples. In contrast, Temple first imagines that complex image of a Specific Thing (often a memory of a specific one she has seen) instead of the abstracted image.
The first image that came to mind was the "here is the church, here is the steeple..."[0] hand game that I had otherwise forgotten about for the last 30 years. I wonder what that implies (assuming there's validity to the exercise). On one hand, it's a doubly abstract, non-existing steeple. On the other hand, I was recalling actual hands making the gesture.
Or they simply answered that they had thought of a real steeple and not an abstract one for whatever reason. Perhaps programmers prefer to be seen as thinking of concrete concepts, and so will likely respond that they thought of a 'real' steeple.
Or the programmers might live close to a church.
Combine this with the test not being very good and you've got a recipe for wasting time.
What if you've only very rarely seen a real steeple? I thought of a hand drawn one but almost every steeple I've ever seen was a hand drawn picture in a book.
>Every single programmer answered with a real steeple
But of course. If HN has taught me anything, it's that everyone here is autistic. But never in a particularly negative way, always in a way that makes the people slightly awkward socially, but highly-intelligent. Like a movie.
If you thought of a real steeple you had actually seen then you probably tend towards autism. If you thought of an abstract non-existing steeple then you don't tend towards it.
I was at a gathering of employees in my company. There were about a dozen random people sitting around a table. I tested the whole group at once. Every single programmer answered with a real steeple and every non-programmer thought abstract.
I know this doesn't represent a real study and chance was involved. But it matches something else she said. Functional autistics with jobs are predominantly programmers. She quoted a number, like 70%, but I don't remember for sure.
I, a programmer, personally prefer human interaction on the web. Meeting in real-life, not so much.