Sharing Different Sensory Worlds When talking about differences between how neurotypical (NT) people see the world and how people with autism experience the world, one of the differences may be the foundation for which we interpret our sensory experiences. Many people with autism report that they are acutely aware of, and in tune with, their sensory sensations. What they see, hear, smell, taste, and feel is often very vivid and intense. Some think in pictures rather than words and others tend to categories their world based on how it feels, smells, tastes, or moves. As we will discuss here, this is radically different then how NT people process their world. When an infant is first born he has no language to define what he sees, hears, feels, tastes, or smells. The world is a series of raw sensory data coming together to eventually form familiar patterns (e.g. mother’s face). Eventually, as children develop language, they start to categorize their experiences based on language concepts. Over time these language concepts are used to define our sensory experience, redefining how we process and perceive our experiences. Language concepts become a filter that helps shape for us what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste. Over time our perceptions are biased by our language based filtering, defining for us what we are experiencing. Processing for people with autism stays more sensory based, with less language filtering. They tend to experience their sensory experiences as the raw sensory data presents itself, with little language based concepts. They do less filtering before interpreting. They tend use less language concepts to interpret what they see, hear, feel, etc. Therefore there thinking is more sensory based, than language based; more literal and concrete in their sensory perceptions. They experience the world more true to their raw sensory experiences, rather than first redefining it by language based concepts. For people with autism, “perceptions” are more true to their sensory “sensations”. “Sensation” is the raw sensory input, and “perception” is how we interpret what we see (hear, smell, etc.). With neurotypical people, sensory sensations are mediated by language based concepts, defining how we perceive the experience. We interpret what we sense through words, language concepts that we use to interpret what we experience. For people with autism, they tend to perceive more closely to what they sense, experiencing the raw sensations. The perceptions of neurotypical people are more biased by “inference”, where perceptions of people with autism are more true to the raw experience. However, since people with autism can have a variety of fragmented and distort sensations, their perceptions are not necessary a “factual” representation of reality. When they have sensory registration problems, that can vary from moment to moment, it can drastically effect what they perceive. However, if they don’t have these challenges, their acute sensory perception can be a strong asset in tasks and vocational areas that favor very unbiased observation of sensory detail (art, music, engineering, etc.) This sensory verses language based processing is not “either/or”, but most likely on a continuum with varying degrees of language mediation. Most likely, the degree of sensory verses language based processing probably varies from person to person, and within the same person from day to day. For those who have learned to use language mediation, it quickly falls apart under stress or sensory overload. Although not verified, I suspect that the less language the child has, the more sensory based the processing is. However, there are many people with autism, who have strong language skills, who stay very sensory based in their processing. When it comes to communicating their experiences they have to first translate their experiences into words. Now, based on the two ways of processing, NT people tend to interpret and then categorize their experiences in memory by language. We use language to define what we experience and then use language to categorize the experience into memory. People with autism tend to perceive the raw sensations with less language mediation, and then have more sensory based memories (categorized and stored by sensory characteristics rather than language concepts). These memories can often be very vivid representations of the raw sensation. This also effects the encoding of emotion to raw sensation. Consequently, the emotional reaction associated with the raw sensory sensation is often attached to the memory of that event. Thus, when those raw sensory sensations occur again it can elicit strong emotions that were initially associated with that experience. This series on “sensory issues” can be found in the blue book, “Autism Discussion Page on the Core Challenges of Autism”.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:04:31 +0000
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