Eye Contact
Mar. 12th, 2006 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdI've been meaning to write this one for a while, but I've never gotten around to it because of life, the universe and everything. So Douglas of me. Heh.
Anyway.
One of the defining aspects of Autism or Aspergers or what ever is the individual's inability to make eye contact with the person they are speaking with. This has beffudled researchers and those sorts for many years. How can a person not make eye contact? Why don't they make eye contact with the person they're speaking with. Why don't they look at them in the face. The reason that has come up the most for this is that something along the lines that, since the Autistic person is hypersensative to a lot of things, it must hurt them to make eye contact with the person they're talking with, so they don't do it.
That has got to be the stupidest idea in the world.
Unless of course the person they're speaking with is Cyclops and he's shooting eyebeams at them. But then they wouldn't have a head to look with anyway, so it's a moot point.
The best way to explain why autistic people don't look at a person when they're talking to them is the same reason that a normal person doesn't hold a conversation while looking at a wall. It's kinda boring to look at, and you don't get any information from the wall as to how the person you're talking to is feeling.
See Autistic people don't get any information from a face when they talk to a person. They don't read facial expressions. Facial expressions mean nothing to them. So while a person may get the subtlites of that slightly quirked eyebrow or the twitch of the lips, the autistic person gets nothing.
It gets kinda boring after a while too, especailly when there are more interesting things to look at than the person's face.
The best comparison for normal people, is when they hold a conversation on the phone. Or even the Instant Messaging. You don't look into your phone when you're talking to the person on the other end of the line, because all you're hearing is their voice. You don't know what they're looking at, their facial expressions or anything like that. And that's what it's like for the autistic person, except we don't often get the sublties of tone of voice and things like that.
It's probably why a lot of us speak in a mono-tone sort of way. We don't get any information from that either.
Personally I think a completely autistic society would be a mostly non-verbal one, using hand expressions to get meaning across.
But that's a topic for another time.
Anyway.
One of the defining aspects of Autism or Aspergers or what ever is the individual's inability to make eye contact with the person they are speaking with. This has beffudled researchers and those sorts for many years. How can a person not make eye contact? Why don't they make eye contact with the person they're speaking with. Why don't they look at them in the face. The reason that has come up the most for this is that something along the lines that, since the Autistic person is hypersensative to a lot of things, it must hurt them to make eye contact with the person they're talking with, so they don't do it.
That has got to be the stupidest idea in the world.
Unless of course the person they're speaking with is Cyclops and he's shooting eyebeams at them. But then they wouldn't have a head to look with anyway, so it's a moot point.
The best way to explain why autistic people don't look at a person when they're talking to them is the same reason that a normal person doesn't hold a conversation while looking at a wall. It's kinda boring to look at, and you don't get any information from the wall as to how the person you're talking to is feeling.
See Autistic people don't get any information from a face when they talk to a person. They don't read facial expressions. Facial expressions mean nothing to them. So while a person may get the subtlites of that slightly quirked eyebrow or the twitch of the lips, the autistic person gets nothing.
It gets kinda boring after a while too, especailly when there are more interesting things to look at than the person's face.
The best comparison for normal people, is when they hold a conversation on the phone. Or even the Instant Messaging. You don't look into your phone when you're talking to the person on the other end of the line, because all you're hearing is their voice. You don't know what they're looking at, their facial expressions or anything like that. And that's what it's like for the autistic person, except we don't often get the sublties of tone of voice and things like that.
It's probably why a lot of us speak in a mono-tone sort of way. We don't get any information from that either.
Personally I think a completely autistic society would be a mostly non-verbal one, using hand expressions to get meaning across.
But that's a topic for another time.
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Date: 2006-03-13 02:21 am (UTC)(Interesting story. There's one map in Super Smash Bros. Melee that I can't play on because it shines and sparkles and I can't concentrate on anything while it's there.)
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