First (and Big) Impressions
July 5, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A new study published in Current Biology suggests that what we “see” internally—in the mind’s eye—can directly influence our visual perception. From yesterday’s Science Daily:
It is well known that a powerful perceptual experience can change the way a person sees things later. Just think of what can happen if you discover an unwanted pest in your kitchen, such as a mouse. Suddenly you see mice in every dust ball and dark corner—or think you do. Is it possible that imagining something, just once, might also change how you perceive things?
“You might think you need to imagine something 10 times or 100 times before it has an impact,” says Frank Tong, associate professor of psychology and co-author of the study. “Our results show that even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another, dramatically, if the conditions are right.”
With Charlie, it’s so often the first of something he’s seen or eaten or heard or just experienced that becomes what he expects every time. When he still watched Barney videos, we bought him ones in which one boy named Michael was around 8 and then others in which Michael was an adolescent, and another in which Michael looked like he must be dancing to “Hey Mr. Knickerbocker” between semesters at college. Charlie insisted on Michael at 8 (in “Shapes and Colors”); it’s the songs from that video, and from “Sleepytime Songs” (Michael was maybe 10) that Charlie still sings from time to time. The therapists he talks most about are the original five are the original five and I once set Charlie at ease about a new speech therapist in New Jersey by saying “she’s just like Tara.”
Charlie, one could say, is faithful to the archetype, and when it’s not that first and original one, major upsetment can occur, from major cognitive dissonance, when the reality does not match with what’s stored up in his mind’s eye.
Yes! We struggle with the reality not matching the minds eye as well. Especially if we think we have explained something well and then discover M took it a totally different way and it causes all sorts of melt downs.
This happens with things that would seem simple too. For instance, a meal. She will visualize one thing and when she sees it…if it is different she has a very difficult time handling that.
Thank you Kristina for this amazing website! My son has had asd for over a year now (was diagnosed in Kindergarten) and this website is a God-send. I truly believe that vaccines do NOT CAUSE autism. I am sorry that so many people believe this myth. I would rather have my son (who I consider perfect in every way!) the “way” he is, than take a chance on possibly contracting a fatal illness, just because of ignorance. I have never believed that vaccines cause autism. Autism and Asperger’s just happen to be a “little” quirk of nature that make this world a different and unique place to live. Do I worry about what the future holds for my son, Cole? Yes; but giving him every opportunity to excell in life is what all parents need to do for their kids with asd and without it. Thank you for this website and I will be posting more frequently, now that I have found this amazing website and blog! Erika
Yes, even the most minute variations on a theme drive mine completely batty, not that I’m without sympathy of course.
Cheers
@Maddy, you’re back! have missed your whitterer-ing…..
@Erika, So glad to “meet” you—thank you for your too kind words and really appreciate hearing about Cole and about what you think.
@Marla, Yes, same about foods—I think Charlie’s especially attuned to the smell of things, besides what they look like. I think he got upset last week while choosing a pack of sushi because he couldn’t find the precise kind (colors, arrangement in the packet) that he wanted (and some rock and roll playing right above his head from a speaker did not help).
Lazy Saturday morning here with my snoozing (ever perfect) boy.
I am the same way as Charlie.
I think in part creating the expectation is helpful: I know what to expect, and can prepare maximally. If it is as I expected, I will then ‘function’ maximally too. So I create expectation as often as I can, and also as quickly as possible (unconsciously, though now analysed as best I can) i.e. after a first experience. If, however, it turns out different from expectation, everything falls apart. A double-edged blade.
If I don’t know what to expect, and realise that, I will not melt down, but will not function well overall. Shutdown usually ensues quite quickly and all in all… it will just be sub-optimal. Stress is higher on the whole.
I prefer the former situation: knowing what to expect. I’ll take the meltdowns/other kinds of upset when it goes wrong.
The difficulty is knowing what the expectation is with someone like Tom who has trouble “remembering” what he just did, never mind telling you what he’s thinking! Then there is the imagination thing–Tom has an overactive one, and uses it in startling, innovative, and lovely ways–but it’s another two-edged sword. For example he has recently developed a bug phobia based on the idea that “mama bumblebee stung me in my eye.” He’s never been stung by anything, anywhere, but he cannot be convinced otherwise. There goes the plans for hiking this summer!!!
I can relate somewhat to this. Whenever my SO’s facial hair reaches a certain length, I start really wanting him to trim/shave it — not because it bothers me physically or aesthetically, but because he had it at a certain length when I first met him and I start finding it harder to visually recognize him when it deviates a lot from that!
I also do the same thing with my own face to some extent — when I first got glasses I hated wearing them because I “didn’t look like myself” with them. I eventually got contacts and was happy about that, but eventually switched back to glasses due to eye allergies and the simple fact that glasses are easier to maintain (and don’t require sticking fingers in my eyes). And now I’m at the point where I feel really weird NOT wearing glasses, and don’t feel like I look like myself without them.
My hair, though, is another story — I’ve liked wearing it short for the past few years, but I’m pretty sure it’s been every color of the rainbow during that time interval.
oddly this didn’t make me think of my son, but my mother. Who seems to have developed an inability to separate some fantasy from reality… she’s far too young for this to be happening, but then she’s also effectively hermitted herself, which isn’t really good for her mental health, either…
Mention of hair makes me think of how Charlie, after he gets a buzz cut, tries to put the hair back on his head! And to put the teeth that have come out back in his mouth.
He also tries to get Jim and me (and my parents) to sit in particular places on the couch sometimes, and he always wants Jim to wear a certain blue shirt and me to wear a certain pink one. I figure there’s some “deep memory” behind it.
@TomsMom, maybe he heard somewhere about bumblebees and stinging in the eye?
@AnneC, I have contacts and glasses and wear both; Charlie hasn’t seem to care much one way or the other (fortunately, and the glasses I’ve been wearing have fairly thick black frames).
I have this problem with music. I find myself incapable of singing versions of a song–I could never be a cover artist. The version I hear first is THE version, and all others are fake (even if the one I heard first is actually a cover of an older song). It drives me irrationally mad if people sing along and don’t keep to the cadence, tone, and even breaths that the artist takes. How much it bothers me depends largely on how much I like the music: if you sing along with a favourite, you had better do as close to perfect an immitation as possible. Consequently, I’m very good at immitating music and singing voices, and am distressed to sound like just myself. It’s inhibited me as a singer in a lot of small ways.
Hmmmmm—–you’re giving me an idea of why Charlie dislikes it when I sing a song, but prefers his own singing.
I strongly prefer my own singing. It’s not that I dislike my friends’ voices–the group I hang out with are all trained singers–but that they’re all quite reasonable at singing their own versions of a song, and I find myself really upset for no good reason when they deviate from the tune. This feeds a similar compulsion to know all the words.
“tries to put the hair back on his head! And to put the teeth that have come out back in his mouth.
He also tries to get Jim and me (and my parents) to sit in particular places on the couch sometimes, and he always wants Jim to wear a certain blue shirt and me to wear a certain pink one.”
You mean that stuff ISN’T considered normal?? LOL. I started to guess that people having specific places to sit was unusual when Sheldon from Big Bang Theory insisted on sitting in his own seat he always sits in, but the others I thought were pretty usual.
When I was a kid I would go into screaming meltdown if my mom cut the sandwich across instead of diagonally, though she didn’t see what was the problem since she didn’t know that my dad (who’d stayed home with me while my mom kept working) had made and cut my sandwiches the same every day for years.
Also she would forget key ingredients like lettuce, which she doesn’t normally eat with sandwiches, but which had been a staple ever since I could remember.
She had no idea I was autistic, and she always wondered why I didn’t get into screaming meltdowns very often when dad was home, and mainly it was because he did things the way I expected, and also understood when something was overstimulating me and that I needed more time to learn how to do things like wash dishes and do laundry (he’s autistic too).
One thing will over-ride the awkward feeling of having less hair when I get a lot of it cut – I’ll be able to get my hair very clean, something which has been difficult for me to achieve since I started showering 5 years ago. (And baths take too long.) It’s like having all that hair is too much information for me to keep track of, so inevitably I’ll forget to wash part of it, or forget to brush part of it – had similar problems with brushing teeth, too, but my parents helped with that and I developed a procedure so now it usually takes me no more than 2 or 3 minutes to brush.
“Mention of hair makes me think of how Charlie, after he gets a buzz cut, tries to put the hair back on his head! And to put the teeth that have come out back in his mouth.”
Heheh, I used to save it all because I did realise there was no way it was going back on my head or in my mouth, but it was too hard to let go of it. So I had a box and I put my hair, my nails, what was left of my food, etc. in it (teeth went in a special box). It got pretty disgusting and my parents had a hell of a time trying to get me to quit that ^^.
That reminds me of the manga I was reading where the kid had a melt-down because they changed the time of his favourite show, or because there was a new character.
Me, I hate when people sing in the wrong “colour”. When I listen to music I “see” colours based on the key. So if someone sings, say, creamy white C major instead of light read D major, it urks me.
I also dislike most cover songs, but Tori Amos can make most things good.