Re: Vermeulen: it is kinda nice, though, when an allistic reiterates that it requires no time or effort to give us more details, i.e.: there's no good reason to behave like an asshole. Like, yeah!
I'm so happy about the study on autistic joy, but also it's always such a bummer that we need peer review studies to back up what we've been saying. Like yeah, we also experience joy more intensely, yeah, people tend to dislike us for no reason, yeah we have fucking feelings - what the fuck.
I gotta check out that part of the book! Thanks for the heads up :-) Also I’m writing about my new special interest right now—The sensory freedom and gender euphoria of learning to sew your own clothes!
Something interesting to offer as an autistic person with OCD: trouble and distress in disregarding errors in predictions of things that could happen, and upset and confusion coming when specific predictive models don't generalize well, sounds to me a LOT like my (pure-O-leaning) OCD. A more volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world would be just the place for an anxious, traumatized person to develop "trouble handling uncertainty", what some consider the fundamental basis of OCD. Thanks for helping me understand my brain a bit better.
I’ve now forwarded this thing about autistic prediction to two fellow autistic friends and read it to my husband … it just hits so hard! “Uncertainty stress” is life 😭
Reading that 7 out of 10 autistic kids were able to accurately identify the emotion/face expression and none of the allistic kids were, was so gd validating. Face expressions are something that I pay really close attention to, so when people say autistic's can't read social cues it has always been a little confusing for me.... but maybe I needed more clarity on what exactly that meant (bad with social cues) 😅.
I agree! I think that the idea that autistics don’t understand social cues really means that autistic people often accurately interpret people’s facial expressions and tone and then react accordingly but it’s not considered polite to acknowledge reality in the moment. For example if someone is pretending to be happy but you can tell that they are actually upset and then you ask them why they’re upset, a lot of allistic people consider that rude or inappropriate. So it’s not autistic people misinterpreting emotional cues, it’s that I think allistics expect others to go along with the pretense.
I always marvel at how other people don’t know what the weather forecast is. It seems to me an almost psychopathic disregard for important information 😆
As one of those design nerds, the footnote about no, not the greige walls certainly got me. Nothing made my home office better than changing away from a dimmable light because my problem is the wrong sounds from said type of light, ha. No more variable buzzing!
But footnote aside I am feeling so pleased with talk of uncertainty and processing. So many interesting ways to understand.
Have you come across the “model human processor”? It’s something from second wave human-computer interaction study that I feel like might be in (outdated) conversation with a lot of ways I’ve heard people assume people process things. At the very least it’s got a really fun illustration in some texts.
electric buzzing /electricity sound is my nemesis. i love dimmable
lights in theory but also run into the
sound issue.
also i just moved and the stove in my new apartment has a screen thing for the buttons / clock and it makes that high pitched sound and it kinda makes me want to cry. there's space to put a small table in there but i probably won't bc i can't see myself sitting there and hearing that
Clarity does wonders for autistics and benefits the greater whole. The marginalized wouldn't be marginalized if they weren't contained from taking an equal place.
I'd like to offer some clarifications on the difference between predictive processing in autistics compared to allistics. They come via my friend, who studies the application of this science to learning. We are both autistic and a bit private. I hope its useful...
Under predictive processing theory, all humans — autistic and allistic — rely on predictive models to perceive the world. Perception is an active inference process in which the brain continuously generates predictions about incoming sensory input and updates these predictions based on the difference between expected and actual signals (prediction error) (Friston, 2005; Clark, 2013).
The statement that autistic people “rely on sensory information instead of predictive models” is therefore incorrect. The difference lies not in whether predictive modelling occurs, but in how prediction errors are weighted and interpreted. Evidence suggests that in autism, sensory priors may be assigned atypical or overly rigid valence (affective or significance value). When the valence attached to a prior is mismatched to the sensory context, prediction errors can be registered yet fail to update the prior — the system maintains the existing model as the most “credible” interpretation according to its internal weighting rules (Lawson et al., 2014; Palmer et al., 2017). This can lead to heightened sensitivity to detail, reduced contextual smoothing, and persistence of certain perceptual interpretations, even in the face of contradictory evidence.
Corrected framing:
Predictive modelling underlies perception in both autistic and allistic individuals. In autism, differences in precision weighting and valence assignment to sensory priors may cause prediction errors to be registered but not used to update those priors. This does not indicate an absence of predictive processing, but rather an alteration in how sensory evidence is integrated into the perceptual model.
Key references
Friston, K. (2005). A theory of cortical responses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 360(1456), 815–836. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2005.1622
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181–204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477
Lawson, R. P., Rees, G., & Friston, K. J. (2014). An aberrant precision account of autism. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 302. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00302
Palmer, C. J., Lawson, R. P., & Hohwy, J. (2017). Bayesian approaches to autism: Towards volatility, action, and behaviour. Psychological Bulletin, 143(5), 521–542. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000097
Re: Vermeulen: it is kinda nice, though, when an allistic reiterates that it requires no time or effort to give us more details, i.e.: there's no good reason to behave like an asshole. Like, yeah!
I'm so happy about the study on autistic joy, but also it's always such a bummer that we need peer review studies to back up what we've been saying. Like yeah, we also experience joy more intensely, yeah, people tend to dislike us for no reason, yeah we have fucking feelings - what the fuck.
I gotta check out that part of the book! Thanks for the heads up :-) Also I’m writing about my new special interest right now—The sensory freedom and gender euphoria of learning to sew your own clothes!
Something interesting to offer as an autistic person with OCD: trouble and distress in disregarding errors in predictions of things that could happen, and upset and confusion coming when specific predictive models don't generalize well, sounds to me a LOT like my (pure-O-leaning) OCD. A more volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world would be just the place for an anxious, traumatized person to develop "trouble handling uncertainty", what some consider the fundamental basis of OCD. Thanks for helping me understand my brain a bit better.
I’ve now forwarded this thing about autistic prediction to two fellow autistic friends and read it to my husband … it just hits so hard! “Uncertainty stress” is life 😭
I wonder what you make out of this new opinion piece on neurodiversity 2.0? Would love to read your take on it https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S3050656525001245#sec0055
Reading that 7 out of 10 autistic kids were able to accurately identify the emotion/face expression and none of the allistic kids were, was so gd validating. Face expressions are something that I pay really close attention to, so when people say autistic's can't read social cues it has always been a little confusing for me.... but maybe I needed more clarity on what exactly that meant (bad with social cues) 😅.
Please keep sharing your crocheting with us!!
I agree! I think that the idea that autistics don’t understand social cues really means that autistic people often accurately interpret people’s facial expressions and tone and then react accordingly but it’s not considered polite to acknowledge reality in the moment. For example if someone is pretending to be happy but you can tell that they are actually upset and then you ask them why they’re upset, a lot of allistic people consider that rude or inappropriate. So it’s not autistic people misinterpreting emotional cues, it’s that I think allistics expect others to go along with the pretense.
Oh these are such great points!!!
I always marvel at how other people don’t know what the weather forecast is. It seems to me an almost psychopathic disregard for important information 😆
As one of those design nerds, the footnote about no, not the greige walls certainly got me. Nothing made my home office better than changing away from a dimmable light because my problem is the wrong sounds from said type of light, ha. No more variable buzzing!
But footnote aside I am feeling so pleased with talk of uncertainty and processing. So many interesting ways to understand.
Have you come across the “model human processor”? It’s something from second wave human-computer interaction study that I feel like might be in (outdated) conversation with a lot of ways I’ve heard people assume people process things. At the very least it’s got a really fun illustration in some texts.
electric buzzing /electricity sound is my nemesis. i love dimmable
lights in theory but also run into the
sound issue.
also i just moved and the stove in my new apartment has a screen thing for the buttons / clock and it makes that high pitched sound and it kinda makes me want to cry. there's space to put a small table in there but i probably won't bc i can't see myself sitting there and hearing that
Clarity does wonders for autistics and benefits the greater whole. The marginalized wouldn't be marginalized if they weren't contained from taking an equal place.
I'd like to offer some clarifications on the difference between predictive processing in autistics compared to allistics. They come via my friend, who studies the application of this science to learning. We are both autistic and a bit private. I hope its useful...
Under predictive processing theory, all humans — autistic and allistic — rely on predictive models to perceive the world. Perception is an active inference process in which the brain continuously generates predictions about incoming sensory input and updates these predictions based on the difference between expected and actual signals (prediction error) (Friston, 2005; Clark, 2013).
The statement that autistic people “rely on sensory information instead of predictive models” is therefore incorrect. The difference lies not in whether predictive modelling occurs, but in how prediction errors are weighted and interpreted. Evidence suggests that in autism, sensory priors may be assigned atypical or overly rigid valence (affective or significance value). When the valence attached to a prior is mismatched to the sensory context, prediction errors can be registered yet fail to update the prior — the system maintains the existing model as the most “credible” interpretation according to its internal weighting rules (Lawson et al., 2014; Palmer et al., 2017). This can lead to heightened sensitivity to detail, reduced contextual smoothing, and persistence of certain perceptual interpretations, even in the face of contradictory evidence.
Corrected framing:
Predictive modelling underlies perception in both autistic and allistic individuals. In autism, differences in precision weighting and valence assignment to sensory priors may cause prediction errors to be registered but not used to update those priors. This does not indicate an absence of predictive processing, but rather an alteration in how sensory evidence is integrated into the perceptual model.
Key references
Friston, K. (2005). A theory of cortical responses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 360(1456), 815–836. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2005.1622
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181–204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477
Lawson, R. P., Rees, G., & Friston, K. J. (2014). An aberrant precision account of autism. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 302. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00302
Palmer, C. J., Lawson, R. P., & Hohwy, J. (2017). Bayesian approaches to autism: Towards volatility, action, and behaviour. Psychological Bulletin, 143(5), 521–542. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000097
This is so interesting! As usual. 😊 I love the flowers! That seems like a really pleasant activity