11 ms·

Me and Monotropism: A unified theory of autism (2018)

92 points by edward 4y ago

yamrzou 4y ago
(2018)
hirundo 4y ago
It would be useful to have a monotropism knob, to turn up when studying something technical or coding, and down when situational awareness is key, as in hunting or at a party. At least if we could experience different levels of focus it could make us aware that a high position on the spectrum can be more advantage than disorder.
- golemotron 4y ago
  One could argue that Adderall and similar medications are that knob.
  - jiggunjer 4y ago
    But not available to the general public :(
- teucris 4y ago
  Vernor Vinge explores this in “A Fire Upon the Deep” with a technology (I believe it’s called “Focus”) that turns people into extreme monotropes to perform complex tasks and solve difficult problems. It’s a great examination of the darker implications of being able to manipulate people in this way.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- bitwize 4y ago
  OK to pep up your language centers? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/escape-from-spiderhead https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/escape-from-sp...
ainar-g 4y ago
The reframing of executive dysfunction as a kind of mental inertia is interesting and consistent with my personal experience with the phenomenon. They say that the beginning is the hardest part, but it has always been almost unbearably hard for me. On the other hand, once I start doing the thing I wanted-but-wouldn't, I usually go on with it for quite some time. This also reminded me of the article[1] about the “Bayesian interpretation” of Autism and several others mental conditions. I'm not sure how much rigorous study there is behind such theories, but they do provide an interesting framework to think about these conditions. [1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-up/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-...
- bitwize 4y ago
  I think of it as "the flywheel". It takes a lot of energy to spin up, but once it's spinning it tends to stay spinning with minimal energy upkeep -- and be extremely resistant to changes in orientation. A flywheel-mind can keep going in the same direction near indefinitely, but to change its direction you need to brake it first; that results in friction, heat, and wear, not to mention the energy cost of spinning it up again.
TeeMassive 4y ago
I really liked this paper: 'An aberrant precision account of autism': https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00302/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.0030... I never was formally diagnosed with autism but the signs are obvious as it was also noticed by family and friends. The paper is academic and not vulgarized for the general public but if you take the time it is really worth it, specially the part about perception.
- munificent 4y ago
  I have autistic people in my family, and that paper resonates with my experiences with them in a way that no other description of autism ever has.
callesgg 4y ago
I think dysfunctional theory of mind(mentalizing) explains allot more on a more general plane than monotropism does when it comes to the autistic mind. That said one might make the leap that poor mentalization is a effect caused by monotropism as the article seams to imply. It’s a chicken and egg problem. I personally tend to think that poor mentalization ability leads to problems when it comes to subconscious guiding of attention.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  I'm autistic and I feel like I have pretty good theory of mind. I may have been somewhat late in developing its sophistication as a child but certainly not to the point where anyone ever flagged me as dysfunctional in that way. As an adult I struggle with overly empathizing with other people, getting too involved in what I imagine their thoughts and experiences and motivations to be. I have complex models for all the individuals I interact with and have no particular problems developing them for new people. I'm not particularly educated on this subject at all, but monotropism certainly describes the experience of living in my mind. Other people aren't a mystery to me, nor am I or my motivations a mystery to myself. I struggle against being overwhelmed by certain experiences, emotions, stimulus and changes, but not in understanding them. I may not be representative here and I'm not saying I am, or that my experiences are a refutation of either theory. But a lot of what the article says rang true for me and nothing you propose has.
  - callesgg 4y ago
    That is commonly what people with high functioning autism says in response to that hypothesis. My assumption is that when you develop good enough of a theory of mind later in life. You are in a situation where you can see how bad you where before and how much better you became after. So you think you are now good at it. It’s like a dunning Kruger effect. It is also important to note that good does not necessarily mean correct or accurate (even if that certainly can be a part of it)it means useful for guiding proper behavior. With that said, the hypothesis is not that bad mentalization abilities is equal to autism. It is that bad mentalization causes you to adopt/learn unconscious behavioral patterns and those patterns are what we classify as autism. This means that even when you “fix” the bad mentalization ability. The person still has all of those behavioral patterns ingrained in them.
jgilias 4y ago
I have a question about autistic experience that I've had for some time that I'd be very happy if someone could answer from their perspective. The (highly functioning) autistic people I've known in my life all have this issue that they don't seem to be able to acknowledge when they are wrong. To the point of denying reality if it doesn't correspond to their mental model of whatever it is that they are wrong about. Is this common and related in some way to being on the spectrum, or just a coincidence?
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Probably just a coincidence or, just guessing based on where we are, a byproduct of most of the autists you know being software developers. Personally when I find out I'm wrong about something it's a relief. Usually when my understanding of something doesn't line up with everyone else's, the cause is much more complex and disturbing. Me just misunderstanding is the most benign possibility and one I am happy to accept.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  Neurotypical people are often lying to you when they pretend to acknowledge they were wrong. Autistic people are less likely to follow the social ritual of being polite to your face before going back to doing things the way they were before. Also, the autistic mind does not handle change very well. So it's usually not an ego thing about being wrong like a neurotypical person, it's a panic attack inducing psychological response to the world not working according to the mental model.
- tristor 4y ago
  I can't speak for everybody, but I have high functioning autism, and according to others I have difficulty admitting when I'm wrong. I actually believe the opposite and think that I'm very good (better than average) at admitting when I'm wrong and I actively seek out additional information to form a better understanding of the world around me. If I truly do believe that I am correct, I am more than willing to engage in a protracted conversation/argument until I fully understand why the other person believes me to be incorrect, and I am happy to accept additional evidence contrary to my viewpoint as long as it is evidence and not merely anecdotal or personal opinion. At least for me, the main issue I have is that many people I interact with use "gotchas" to try to "prove" that I'm wrong in conversations/arguments, which eliminate significant amounts of context, nuance, or stretch the bounds of reality. Alternatively, many situations involve people, and people don't act rationally, so a model which assumes rational actors will often be violated by the behavior of others in practice, which doesn't necessarily mean that the model is wrong or the expected behavior wouldn't have been more optimal, it's simply not what the person chose to do. When there is sufficient evidence based in reality that my model or my understanding is incorrect, I freely admit to it and work to get even more information so I can update my model of the world and improve my understanding. I am rarely incorrect, because I am nearly obsessive about learning more and more information about the world around me. Sometimes when I am legitimately wrong, it is because I have forgotten a detail and when corrected admit to this, but it is unsatisfactory for the other person because they are expecting me to completely change my entire world view rather than simply saying "You're right, I forgot about that, but did know that, so yes ... X".
superb-owl 4y ago
I'm increasingly intrigued by the idea of autism as one end of a spectrum of cognition strategies, with schizophrenia at the other end. Scott Alexander has a lot to say about this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/12/11/diametrical-model-of-autism-and-schizophrenia/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/12/11/diametrical-model-of-a... https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/blindness-schizophrenia-and-autism https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/blindness-schizophreni... https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-up/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-... tl;dr: Autistic folks have really tight confidence intervals on their priors. In these circumstances, sensory data that deviates slightly from expectation becomes very grating (noise and touch sensitivity) and sensory data that conforms to expectation is exceptionally rewarding (hence stimming and deep topical science-y interests). Schizophrenic folks have really broad confidence intervals on their priors. In these circumstances, sensory data that deviates from expectation is interpreted as meaningful rather than noise (hence hallucinations and psychotic jumps to conclusions), but they'll tend to do better on tasks that require relaxed priors (e.g. the concave/convex face)
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Just don't ask too many questions about what else he believes about the range of human cognition, or what we should be doing about it!
  - superb-owl 4y ago
    Tell me about it. He's a smart dude and I can't help but appreciate his work. But his defense of racialism is getting harder and harder for me to ignore.
    - adolph 4y ago
      > his defense of racialism ??
      - superb-owl 4y ago
        I'd suggest reading the NY Times article on him [1], as well as his rebuttal [2] I don't think the Times was entirely fair in their coverage. But as a long time SSC/ACX reader I've often felt a subtext of racialist beliefs lurking in the corner. He never comes right out and says it, but e.g. praising Charles Murray is more than a dog whistle. To be clear - I'm distinguishing racialism (which believes there are large, measurable, genetic differences in traits like intelligence and aggression between races) and racism (which carries an extra connotation of emotional hatred). I think of racialism as racism masquerading as objective science. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-cod... [2] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-times-article https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...
63 4y ago
The theory is wonderful in its simplicity and I can see how that's appealing, but it doesn't feel correct to me. I don't think neurotypical people are really paying attention to everything they need to when talking to people and I (an autistic person) am just unable to. I also don't see how the theory addresses my state when I'm in between interests. As of now there's no overwhelming interest that consumes all my thoughts yet I still experience autism. This is an interesting model and I do appreciate the reframing from dysfunction to functioning differently, but I don't think it's a complete picture and I think it's especially bad at communicating how it feels to be autistic.
- tgv 4y ago
  That's because it falls in the trap of trying to explain a rather large set of vague symptoms (not causes, mind you) which has been put under the label 'autism' with one single factor, which is not even properly defined. But hey, it has a fancy new word!
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    This also happens with ADHD. There are 3 "types" but last I checked, I think there were believed to be 6 distinct disorders or underlying problems under those labels. You could have one or more of them. Psychology has come a long way in the last few decades but it still has a long way to go.
    - tgv 4y ago
      I'm actually not sure psychology has come a long way in the last decades. There's a ton of research, but almost all of it is simply wrong. Treatment hasn't progressed. The only new, somewhat successful therapy I know of is EMDR, and that's been overblown quite a bit. The rest was already around in the 1990s, and CBT is even older.
- 0olong 4y ago
  For clarity, anything that pulls in your attention at any given time is an interest that's currently aroused. It's not always overwhelming! I just think that whatever it is typically consumes more of a monotropic person's processing resources than for the average brain.
nathias 4y ago
I think the opposite is true, there is just much more neural diversity that we think and the neurotypicality just hides this because we only see behaviours and those can be achieved in many completely different ways.
kokanator 4y ago
Don't play poker with an autist. I have two autist adult children. Both with amazing super powers. In my house their abilities were always discussed and viewed as super powers. They are both capable of things others could only imagine. Focus, recall, logical reasoning are all on a level above most. Not to mention the ability to count cards. The Monotropism theory speaks more completely to my experiences raising both of them. > Recognise what someone’s passionate about and learn how to become part of the attention tunnels which come with monotropic focus, rather than trying to just reach in and pull the person out of the flow states that are so important to us. This I believe is the most important statement in the entire article. Yes, providing tools to navigate the neuro world they live in is important. However, to shunt or not understand their ability is to loose sight of the outrageous things they are capable of. Helping each of my children to learn their strengths and the power of their ability to use flow states has made a world of difference. Additionally, girls tend to be not be recognized as autist as early as boys. They are much better at masking. However, the Monotropism theory much better aligns with girls than other theories.
- glial 4y ago
  > Helping each of my children to learn their strengths and the power of their ability...has made a world of difference. Thanks for sharing your experience. This is important advice for any parent, educator, or mentor.
- anotherevan 4y ago
  > Additionally, girls tend to be not be recognized as autist as early as boys. They are much better at masking. My son and daughter are both autistic and I could go on a complete rant about the patriarchal experiences I've had with regards to the medical profession and women. My son got an autism diagnosis at eight just for being "a little bit odd". After may daughter barely left the house for two years from age fifteen she was first declared "borderline". Women are naturally more anxious than men, you see. Took another 1.5 years and a neuropsychologist to say that yes, she is autistic. I was fortunate enough to be able to switch my work to part-time fully work from home so I could take her to various medical appointments (she has a lot of issues that are often co-morbid). Too many times this was necessary, not only for emotional support, but to be someone in the room who has a penis to advocate on her behalf.
jimmaswell 4y ago
> the most widely recognised symbol of it (unpopular in the autistic community I could've sworn they were about to say Sheldon Cooper
one-more-minute 4y ago
Monotropism is compelling for all the reasons the author gives, but it isn't without any loose ends. For example, stimming is a characteristic feature of autism; the authors of the original paper briefly describe it as a focus on activity, but people often fidget to help them focus on something else (eg reading or listening), so it's unclear how that fits with the theory. The same goes for other common experiences like meltdowns, shutdowns and autistic burnout, as well as the higher incidence of alexithymia, queerness, and issues of anxiety and depression, which aren't obviously related to narrow focus. Very possibly the "autistic"/"allistic" labels refer to a mix of different underlying cognitive variables, monotropism being just one. Either way, the theory seems an important step forward.
- silvestrov 4y ago
  I think stimming is a bit like listening to music while coding: When you've heard the song a thousand times before it does not take much brain power to listen to it again and it provides an emotional safety by shutting out unwanted external stimuli. Stimming is doing well known things that doesn't take much attention but also provides emotional safe feeling.
pyentropy 4y ago
Scott Alexander has a cool theory that unifies Bayesian inference, low-level behaviour like neurotransmitter levels and high-level behaviour like learning, making decisions and different sensory phenomena (some of the posts explain autism and schizophrenia): * https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-un... * https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-up/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-... * https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/towards-a-bayesian-theory-of-willpower https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/towards-a-bayesian-the... * https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/trapped-priors-as-a-basic-problem https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/trapped-priors-as-a-ba... The core concept is called predictive coding, which suggests that the brain is constantly generating and updating a model of the world in a top-down and bottom-up manner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding Disclaimer: epistemic status = very speculative.
anotherevan 4y ago
I hate to say it, but when I first read the title I thought, "What do monotremes have to do with autism? That's just weird." Had to read it two more times before it clicked. Tired Australian here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme
GideonMack 4y ago
As a NT wife and mother of people on the autism spectrum,I often notice that the autistic person's desire to be 'right' (or more precisely, their desire not to be 'wrong') takes precedence in their minds to the extent that my attempts to introduce new evidence to support my case, or contextualise my viewpoint further are largely ignored/not processed, and so a waste of time. An example from a shopping trip yesterday: My husband: "Oh, this shower gel is on offer!" (he puts one into our trolley)."Would you like one?" (asked while simultaneously picking up a second bottle and placing it in our trolley). I assume that the second bottle is for me, so later at home, after he's unpacked the shopping, ask him "oh,where did you put my shower gel?", to which he replies "What?, both bottles were for me! You didn't reply when I asked you if you wanted one, so I took it you didn't want one." Now no amount of me replaying the scenario, with me putting two chocolate bars into the trolley will cause him to see (or I often feel admit) that, while I am not conclusively right in my interpretation, it's totally understandable that I could have interpreted the situation in the way in which I did.I feel that if my husband took a colour blind test, where you try to read out the numbers within circles, he would declare that any numbers he couldn't perceive "weren't there", rather than that HE couldn't see them, so may have a degree of colour blindness.

92 points by edward 4y ago

(2018)

It would be useful to have a monotropism knob, to turn up when studying something technical or coding, and down when situational awareness is key, as in hunting or at a party. At least if we could experience different levels of focus it could make us aware that a high position on the spectrum can be more advantage than disorder.

golemotron 4y ago
One could argue that Adderall and similar medications are that knob.
- jiggunjer 4y ago
  But not available to the general public :(
teucris 4y ago
Vernor Vinge explores this in “A Fire Upon the Deep” with a technology (I believe it’s called “Focus”) that turns people into extreme monotropes to perform complex tasks and solve difficult problems. It’s a great examination of the darker implications of being able to manipulate people in this way.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bitwize 4y ago
OK to pep up your language centers? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/escape-from-spiderhead https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/escape-from-sp...

ainar-g 4y ago

The reframing of executive dysfunction as a kind of mental inertia is interesting and consistent with my personal experience with the phenomenon. They say that the beginning is the hardest part, but it has always been almost unbearably hard for me. On the other hand, once I start doing the thing I wanted-but-wouldn't, I usually go on with it for quite some time. This also reminded me of the article[1] about the “Bayesian interpretation” of Autism and several others mental conditions. I'm not sure how much rigorous study there is behind such theories, but they do provide an interesting framework to think about these conditions. [1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-up/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-...

bitwize 4y ago
I think of it as "the flywheel". It takes a lot of energy to spin up, but once it's spinning it tends to stay spinning with minimal energy upkeep -- and be extremely resistant to changes in orientation. A flywheel-mind can keep going in the same direction near indefinitely, but to change its direction you need to brake it first; that results in friction, heat, and wear, not to mention the energy cost of spinning it up again.

TeeMassive 4y ago

I really liked this paper: 'An aberrant precision account of autism': https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00302/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.0030... I never was formally diagnosed with autism but the signs are obvious as it was also noticed by family and friends. The paper is academic and not vulgarized for the general public but if you take the time it is really worth it, specially the part about perception.

munificent 4y ago
I have autistic people in my family, and that paper resonates with my experiences with them in a way that no other description of autism ever has.

callesgg 4y ago

I think dysfunctional theory of mind(mentalizing) explains allot more on a more general plane than monotropism does when it comes to the autistic mind. That said one might make the leap that poor mentalization is a effect caused by monotropism as the article seams to imply. It’s a chicken and egg problem. I personally tend to think that poor mentalization ability leads to problems when it comes to subconscious guiding of attention.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
I'm autistic and I feel like I have pretty good theory of mind. I may have been somewhat late in developing its sophistication as a child but certainly not to the point where anyone ever flagged me as dysfunctional in that way. As an adult I struggle with overly empathizing with other people, getting too involved in what I imagine their thoughts and experiences and motivations to be. I have complex models for all the individuals I interact with and have no particular problems developing them for new people. I'm not particularly educated on this subject at all, but monotropism certainly describes the experience of living in my mind. Other people aren't a mystery to me, nor am I or my motivations a mystery to myself. I struggle against being overwhelmed by certain experiences, emotions, stimulus and changes, but not in understanding them. I may not be representative here and I'm not saying I am, or that my experiences are a refutation of either theory. But a lot of what the article says rang true for me and nothing you propose has.
- callesgg 4y ago
  That is commonly what people with high functioning autism says in response to that hypothesis. My assumption is that when you develop good enough of a theory of mind later in life. You are in a situation where you can see how bad you where before and how much better you became after. So you think you are now good at it. It’s like a dunning Kruger effect. It is also important to note that good does not necessarily mean correct or accurate (even if that certainly can be a part of it)it means useful for guiding proper behavior. With that said, the hypothesis is not that bad mentalization abilities is equal to autism. It is that bad mentalization causes you to adopt/learn unconscious behavioral patterns and those patterns are what we classify as autism. This means that even when you “fix” the bad mentalization ability. The person still has all of those behavioral patterns ingrained in them.

jgilias 4y ago

I have a question about autistic experience that I've had for some time that I'd be very happy if someone could answer from their perspective. The (highly functioning) autistic people I've known in my life all have this issue that they don't seem to be able to acknowledge when they are wrong. To the point of denying reality if it doesn't correspond to their mental model of whatever it is that they are wrong about. Is this common and related in some way to being on the spectrum, or just a coincidence?

giraffe_lady 4y ago
Probably just a coincidence or, just guessing based on where we are, a byproduct of most of the autists you know being software developers. Personally when I find out I'm wrong about something it's a relief. Usually when my understanding of something doesn't line up with everyone else's, the cause is much more complex and disturbing. Me just misunderstanding is the most benign possibility and one I am happy to accept.
Consultant32452 4y ago
Neurotypical people are often lying to you when they pretend to acknowledge they were wrong. Autistic people are less likely to follow the social ritual of being polite to your face before going back to doing things the way they were before. Also, the autistic mind does not handle change very well. So it's usually not an ego thing about being wrong like a neurotypical person, it's a panic attack inducing psychological response to the world not working according to the mental model.
tristor 4y ago
I can't speak for everybody, but I have high functioning autism, and according to others I have difficulty admitting when I'm wrong. I actually believe the opposite and think that I'm very good (better than average) at admitting when I'm wrong and I actively seek out additional information to form a better understanding of the world around me. If I truly do believe that I am correct, I am more than willing to engage in a protracted conversation/argument until I fully understand why the other person believes me to be incorrect, and I am happy to accept additional evidence contrary to my viewpoint as long as it is evidence and not merely anecdotal or personal opinion. At least for me, the main issue I have is that many people I interact with use "gotchas" to try to "prove" that I'm wrong in conversations/arguments, which eliminate significant amounts of context, nuance, or stretch the bounds of reality. Alternatively, many situations involve people, and people don't act rationally, so a model which assumes rational actors will often be violated by the behavior of others in practice, which doesn't necessarily mean that the model is wrong or the expected behavior wouldn't have been more optimal, it's simply not what the person chose to do. When there is sufficient evidence based in reality that my model or my understanding is incorrect, I freely admit to it and work to get even more information so I can update my model of the world and improve my understanding. I am rarely incorrect, because I am nearly obsessive about learning more and more information about the world around me. Sometimes when I am legitimately wrong, it is because I have forgotten a detail and when corrected admit to this, but it is unsatisfactory for the other person because they are expecting me to completely change my entire world view rather than simply saying "You're right, I forgot about that, but did know that, so yes ... X".

superb-owl 4y ago

I'm increasingly intrigued by the idea of autism as one end of a spectrum of cognition strategies, with schizophrenia at the other end. Scott Alexander has a lot to say about this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/12/11/diametrical-model-of-autism-and-schizophrenia/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/12/11/diametrical-model-of-a... https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/blindness-schizophrenia-and-autism https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/blindness-schizophreni... https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-up/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-... tl;dr: Autistic folks have really tight confidence intervals on their priors. In these circumstances, sensory data that deviates slightly from expectation becomes very grating (noise and touch sensitivity) and sensory data that conforms to expectation is exceptionally rewarding (hence stimming and deep topical science-y interests). Schizophrenic folks have really broad confidence intervals on their priors. In these circumstances, sensory data that deviates from expectation is interpreted as meaningful rather than noise (hence hallucinations and psychotic jumps to conclusions), but they'll tend to do better on tasks that require relaxed priors (e.g. the concave/convex face)

giraffe_lady 4y ago
Just don't ask too many questions about what else he believes about the range of human cognition, or what we should be doing about it!
- superb-owl 4y ago
  Tell me about it. He's a smart dude and I can't help but appreciate his work. But his defense of racialism is getting harder and harder for me to ignore.
  - adolph 4y ago
    > his defense of racialism ??
    - superb-owl 4y ago
      I'd suggest reading the NY Times article on him [1], as well as his rebuttal [2] I don't think the Times was entirely fair in their coverage. But as a long time SSC/ACX reader I've often felt a subtext of racialist beliefs lurking in the corner. He never comes right out and says it, but e.g. praising Charles Murray is more than a dog whistle. To be clear - I'm distinguishing racialism (which believes there are large, measurable, genetic differences in traits like intelligence and aggression between races) and racism (which carries an extra connotation of emotional hatred). I think of racialism as racism masquerading as objective science. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-codex-rationalists.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/technology/slate-star-cod... [2] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-times-article https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...

63 4y ago

The theory is wonderful in its simplicity and I can see how that's appealing, but it doesn't feel correct to me. I don't think neurotypical people are really paying attention to everything they need to when talking to people and I (an autistic person) am just unable to. I also don't see how the theory addresses my state when I'm in between interests. As of now there's no overwhelming interest that consumes all my thoughts yet I still experience autism. This is an interesting model and I do appreciate the reframing from dysfunction to functioning differently, but I don't think it's a complete picture and I think it's especially bad at communicating how it feels to be autistic.

tgv 4y ago
That's because it falls in the trap of trying to explain a rather large set of vague symptoms (not causes, mind you) which has been put under the label 'autism' with one single factor, which is not even properly defined. But hey, it has a fancy new word!
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  This also happens with ADHD. There are 3 "types" but last I checked, I think there were believed to be 6 distinct disorders or underlying problems under those labels. You could have one or more of them. Psychology has come a long way in the last few decades but it still has a long way to go.
  - tgv 4y ago
    I'm actually not sure psychology has come a long way in the last decades. There's a ton of research, but almost all of it is simply wrong. Treatment hasn't progressed. The only new, somewhat successful therapy I know of is EMDR, and that's been overblown quite a bit. The rest was already around in the 1990s, and CBT is even older.
0olong 4y ago
For clarity, anything that pulls in your attention at any given time is an interest that's currently aroused. It's not always overwhelming! I just think that whatever it is typically consumes more of a monotropic person's processing resources than for the average brain.

nathias 4y ago

I think the opposite is true, there is just much more neural diversity that we think and the neurotypicality just hides this because we only see behaviours and those can be achieved in many completely different ways.

kokanator 4y ago

Don't play poker with an autist. I have two autist adult children. Both with amazing super powers. In my house their abilities were always discussed and viewed as super powers. They are both capable of things others could only imagine. Focus, recall, logical reasoning are all on a level above most. Not to mention the ability to count cards. The Monotropism theory speaks more completely to my experiences raising both of them. > Recognise what someone’s passionate about and learn how to become part of the attention tunnels which come with monotropic focus, rather than trying to just reach in and pull the person out of the flow states that are so important to us. This I believe is the most important statement in the entire article. Yes, providing tools to navigate the neuro world they live in is important. However, to shunt or not understand their ability is to loose sight of the outrageous things they are capable of. Helping each of my children to learn their strengths and the power of their ability to use flow states has made a world of difference. Additionally, girls tend to be not be recognized as autist as early as boys. They are much better at masking. However, the Monotropism theory much better aligns with girls than other theories.

glial 4y ago
> Helping each of my children to learn their strengths and the power of their ability...has made a world of difference. Thanks for sharing your experience. This is important advice for any parent, educator, or mentor.
anotherevan 4y ago
> Additionally, girls tend to be not be recognized as autist as early as boys. They are much better at masking. My son and daughter are both autistic and I could go on a complete rant about the patriarchal experiences I've had with regards to the medical profession and women. My son got an autism diagnosis at eight just for being "a little bit odd". After may daughter barely left the house for two years from age fifteen she was first declared "borderline". Women are naturally more anxious than men, you see. Took another 1.5 years and a neuropsychologist to say that yes, she is autistic. I was fortunate enough to be able to switch my work to part-time fully work from home so I could take her to various medical appointments (she has a lot of issues that are often co-morbid). Too many times this was necessary, not only for emotional support, but to be someone in the room who has a penis to advocate on her behalf.

jimmaswell 4y ago

> the most widely recognised symbol of it (unpopular in the autistic community I could've sworn they were about to say Sheldon Cooper

one-more-minute 4y ago

Monotropism is compelling for all the reasons the author gives, but it isn't without any loose ends. For example, stimming is a characteristic feature of autism; the authors of the original paper briefly describe it as a focus on activity, but people often fidget to help them focus on something else (eg reading or listening), so it's unclear how that fits with the theory. The same goes for other common experiences like meltdowns, shutdowns and autistic burnout, as well as the higher incidence of alexithymia, queerness, and issues of anxiety and depression, which aren't obviously related to narrow focus. Very possibly the "autistic"/"allistic" labels refer to a mix of different underlying cognitive variables, monotropism being just one. Either way, the theory seems an important step forward.

silvestrov 4y ago
I think stimming is a bit like listening to music while coding: When you've heard the song a thousand times before it does not take much brain power to listen to it again and it provides an emotional safety by shutting out unwanted external stimuli. Stimming is doing well known things that doesn't take much attention but also provides emotional safe feeling.

pyentropy 4y ago

Scott Alexander has a cool theory that unifies Bayesian inference, low-level behaviour like neurotransmitter levels and high-level behaviour like learning, making decisions and different sensory phenomena (some of the posts explain autism and schizophrenia): * https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-uncertainty/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/05/book-review-surfing-un... * https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-up/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/12/its-bayes-all-the-way-... * https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/towards-a-bayesian-theory-of-willpower https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/towards-a-bayesian-the... * https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/trapped-priors-as-a-basic-problem https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/trapped-priors-as-a-ba... The core concept is called predictive coding, which suggests that the brain is constantly generating and updating a model of the world in a top-down and bottom-up manner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding Disclaimer: epistemic status = very speculative.

anotherevan 4y ago

I hate to say it, but when I first read the title I thought, "What do monotremes have to do with autism? That's just weird." Had to read it two more times before it clicked. Tired Australian here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

GideonMack 4y ago

As a NT wife and mother of people on the autism spectrum,I often notice that the autistic person's desire to be 'right' (or more precisely, their desire not to be 'wrong') takes precedence in their minds to the extent that my attempts to introduce new evidence to support my case, or contextualise my viewpoint further are largely ignored/not processed, and so a waste of time. An example from a shopping trip yesterday: My husband: "Oh, this shower gel is on offer!" (he puts one into our trolley)."Would you like one?" (asked while simultaneously picking up a second bottle and placing it in our trolley). I assume that the second bottle is for me, so later at home, after he's unpacked the shopping, ask him "oh,where did you put my shower gel?", to which he replies "What?, both bottles were for me! You didn't reply when I asked you if you wanted one, so I took it you didn't want one." Now no amount of me replaying the scenario, with me putting two chocolate bars into the trolley will cause him to see (or I often feel admit) that, while I am not conclusively right in my interpretation, it's totally understandable that I could have interpreted the situation in the way in which I did.I feel that if my husband took a colour blind test, where you try to read out the numbers within circles, he would declare that any numbers he couldn't perceive "weren't there", rather than that HE couldn't see them, so may have a degree of colour blindness.