5 ms·

> At least for some subset of them, "social intelligence" is little more than analytic intelligence applied to something that has a very low signal-to-noise rat

> At least for some subset of them, "social intelligence" is little more than analytic intelligence applied to something that has a very low signal-to-noise ratio. Yep, that's exactly what it feels like to me. I recently got diagnosed with Asperger's. I find it impossible to do "social intelligence" in real time during a conversation. The frustrating part is that the signal is obviously there, since other people pick up on it just fine.

fatboy 14y ago
Do you find it possible to identify the signals by analysing interactions after the fact, not in real time?
- rcthompson 14y ago
  Sometimes I realize hours or days later that I missed something obvious and important, but of course I cannot do this for every social interaction because I don't have time. Also, thinking about it leaves me mentally exhausted in the same way that organic chemistry and advanced mathematics (two subjects I find easy) do for neurotypicals. But my after-the-fact realizations are contingent upon my noticing and remembering specific details that indicate emotion, which is totally hit-or-miss.
graeme 14y ago
Paul Ekman has extensively documented micro expressions, which are trace views of the signal. Studying them will teach you the normal, longer expressions too, that's how I learned. How exactly does asperger's work? For me the learning process went: Learn that crinkles under the eye mean smile is real --> observe it quite a bit --> learn to see it naturally and intuitively That doesn't feel any different from any normal skill acquisition. But I may have had the advantage of some neural mechanism absent in aspie brains. Anyway, the whole process only took a few months. Ekman has som microexpression training CDs, highly recommended.
- kijin 14y ago
  > learn to see it naturally and intuitively What exactly does it mean for something to become natural and intuitive? It's not unimaginable for an Aspie to learn to observe all sorts of behavioral hints -- BBC's recent incarnation of Sherlock Holmes does this exceptionally well -- but does he actually reach the decision that "This person is telling the truth" by the same process that a "normal" person does? In my experience as an Aspie, it never happens automatically, and it never feels natural. I can hear every line of the code that's being interpreted and executed in my mind. I have a fast CPU, so it doesn't take long, but it definitely happens. if (smile) { try { check_wrinkles(under_eyes); } catch (CantTellException) { make_do_with_rough_assumption(); } } Even worse, Aspies tend to focus intensely on one thing at a time, so multi-tasking is risky business. An Aspie who learned to watch for wrinkles under eyes in real-time might focus so much on nothing but wrinkles under eyes, so that much more obvious signs of lying go completely unnoticed. In other words, check_wrinkles() blocks everything else. Similarly, even though I have extensive experience both in walking around and in hearing my own name, if somebody calls my name from behind while I'm walking, there's over 50% chance that the call won't even register, because every event handler must wait while walk() blocks. Also, the whole program crashes when an unanticipated exception occurs, resulting in extreme frustration. As a consequence, when an Aspie finally gets enough practice to pass as normal, he might look like a normal person to casual observers, but the Aspie himself is always painfully aware that what he's doing is neither natural nor intuitive. At best, he's got the script cached in RAM for quick access.
  - graeme 14y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. Focus would definitely get in the way, since interpreting body language requires seeing many things at once. I'll explain natural and intuitive by an example. In grade 8, I learned to juggle. Not well, but good enough. The process involved clumsily learning several motions and putting them together. Now I can still juggle, despite years of not doing it. The skill, to the level that I trained it is intuitive. It no longer feels like many things, but just one. Likewise, I learned to interpret many gestures. At first, I could only interpret them slowly, separately and consciously. Now I interpret them quickly, jointly and unconsciously most of the time. Are there any skills you've acquired that can now run unconsciously in the background, or does everything require conscious effort and focus? It sounds like the latter, but I'm curious how this works for things that require multiple separate actions, like driving, computer operation, cooking. Those feel like one thing, but really they're several smaller actions joined together.
nnq 14y ago
If you can do it "not in real time" it means you could also get good enough at it to do it "in real time". I don't say that you should as you probably (assuming the best) are a great human being the way you are, and you shouldn't try be more like neurotypicals because other people tell you to. Or that you should be blamed for liking the way you are and preferring to stay this way. But remember that the human brain is a wonderfully adaptive thing: neurotypicals can become more like you and you can become more like them (but they don't have to and you don't have to), so don't let the fact that someone "diagnosed" you one way FOOL YOU INTO BELIEVING THAT YOUR BRAIN IS NOT (ALMOST) INFINITELY ADAPTIVE! That's the greatest danger of diagnosing these things, it makes people forget about the IMENSE adaptive potential of their own mind (and this potential is universal, you could just as well use it to better undertand quantum mechanics as you could to "become" more like neurotypicals, your life, your choice!)

fatboy 14y ago

Do you find it possible to identify the signals by analysing interactions after the fact, not in real time?

rcthompson 14y ago
Sometimes I realize hours or days later that I missed something obvious and important, but of course I cannot do this for every social interaction because I don't have time. Also, thinking about it leaves me mentally exhausted in the same way that organic chemistry and advanced mathematics (two subjects I find easy) do for neurotypicals. But my after-the-fact realizations are contingent upon my noticing and remembering specific details that indicate emotion, which is totally hit-or-miss.

graeme 14y ago

Paul Ekman has extensively documented micro expressions, which are trace views of the signal. Studying them will teach you the normal, longer expressions too, that's how I learned. How exactly does asperger's work? For me the learning process went: Learn that crinkles under the eye mean smile is real --> observe it quite a bit --> learn to see it naturally and intuitively That doesn't feel any different from any normal skill acquisition. But I may have had the advantage of some neural mechanism absent in aspie brains. Anyway, the whole process only took a few months. Ekman has som microexpression training CDs, highly recommended.

kijin 14y ago
> learn to see it naturally and intuitively What exactly does it mean for something to become natural and intuitive? It's not unimaginable for an Aspie to learn to observe all sorts of behavioral hints -- BBC's recent incarnation of Sherlock Holmes does this exceptionally well -- but does he actually reach the decision that "This person is telling the truth" by the same process that a "normal" person does? In my experience as an Aspie, it never happens automatically, and it never feels natural. I can hear every line of the code that's being interpreted and executed in my mind. I have a fast CPU, so it doesn't take long, but it definitely happens. if (smile) { try { check_wrinkles(under_eyes); } catch (CantTellException) { make_do_with_rough_assumption(); } } Even worse, Aspies tend to focus intensely on one thing at a time, so multi-tasking is risky business. An Aspie who learned to watch for wrinkles under eyes in real-time might focus so much on nothing but wrinkles under eyes, so that much more obvious signs of lying go completely unnoticed. In other words, check_wrinkles() blocks everything else. Similarly, even though I have extensive experience both in walking around and in hearing my own name, if somebody calls my name from behind while I'm walking, there's over 50% chance that the call won't even register, because every event handler must wait while walk() blocks. Also, the whole program crashes when an unanticipated exception occurs, resulting in extreme frustration. As a consequence, when an Aspie finally gets enough practice to pass as normal, he might look like a normal person to casual observers, but the Aspie himself is always painfully aware that what he's doing is neither natural nor intuitive. At best, he's got the script cached in RAM for quick access.
- graeme 14y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. Focus would definitely get in the way, since interpreting body language requires seeing many things at once. I'll explain natural and intuitive by an example. In grade 8, I learned to juggle. Not well, but good enough. The process involved clumsily learning several motions and putting them together. Now I can still juggle, despite years of not doing it. The skill, to the level that I trained it is intuitive. It no longer feels like many things, but just one. Likewise, I learned to interpret many gestures. At first, I could only interpret them slowly, separately and consciously. Now I interpret them quickly, jointly and unconsciously most of the time. Are there any skills you've acquired that can now run unconsciously in the background, or does everything require conscious effort and focus? It sounds like the latter, but I'm curious how this works for things that require multiple separate actions, like driving, computer operation, cooking. Those feel like one thing, but really they're several smaller actions joined together.

nnq 14y ago

If you can do it "not in real time" it means you could also get good enough at it to do it "in real time". I don't say that you should as you probably (assuming the best) are a great human being the way you are, and you shouldn't try be more like neurotypicals because other people tell you to. Or that you should be blamed for liking the way you are and preferring to stay this way. But remember that the human brain is a wonderfully adaptive thing: neurotypicals can become more like you and you can become more like them (but they don't have to and you don't have to), so don't let the fact that someone "diagnosed" you one way FOOL YOU INTO BELIEVING THAT YOUR BRAIN IS NOT (ALMOST) INFINITELY ADAPTIVE! That's the greatest danger of diagnosing these things, it makes people forget about the IMENSE adaptive potential of their own mind (and this potential is universal, you could just as well use it to better undertand quantum mechanics as you could to "become" more like neurotypicals, your life, your choice!)