If you were to apply the traditional invisible/visible disability distinction, then I have a highly visible disability when I use my crutches (although a great many people assume I have a sprained ankle for some reason; they’re not even the same kind of crutches). Without the crutches, while walking, I have a somewhat visible disability. It is noticeable, but people take a bit longer to mentally process it and fit me into the category of disabled. While sitting, lying down, typing on the internet, or talking on the phone, then I have an invisible disability. No one notices unless I tell them. Multiple disabilities? No. Hugely variable medical condition that comes and goes? No. Entirely persistent disability that people are more likely to percieve when I’m doing something that involves it? Yes.

I actually haven’t spoken to enough other autistic people about their experience with what’s being referred to as heuristics and aliased perceptions to know, to be perfectly honest. I have no sample size, so to speak.

I can say with honesty that we had some heavily aliased perceptions at one point that were partly self-created and partly constructed by the concepts others wanted us to hold of ourselves and the world, most of which we’ve managed to deconstruct. There may be something to the fact that people trying poorly to imitate what’s thought of as “normalcy” have to view the world through a particular lens. Most of our reasons for trying to screen our perceptions to selectively block certain things weren’t exactly “usual”, however– they were fairly unusual reasons. (Then again, as I mentioned above, using only our own experience as a guide isn’t useful as far as judging prevalence: these things may be far more common than I thought, it’s just that no one wants to talk about them and many people have very good reasons for not wanting to talk about them.)

I do have a working theory that the sheer size and scale of modern societies predisposes people to think in terms of groups and categories of people rather than in terms of individuals; when one has that many people to contend with, I suppose it’s easier to think in terms of “types” and one-size-fits-all models. The problem is that autistic people aren’t necessarily immune to “typing” either– I’ve seen some (including published authors who should have known better) invent incredibly broad categories of “types of autistics” which they then subsumed into their own personal favorite Grand Unified Theory of neurodiversity. I have seen a very wide range of cognitive styles in the autistic community, but cognitive styles, to me, aren’t the same as “types” and the static sets of qualities the term implies to me.

Actually, one thing that’s true of me (not sure if I can explain this well, or if anyone will be able to relate to it, but I’ll make an attempt) is that even when it comes to things like objects in a room, I *don’t* unconsciously apply heuristics about them. When I look at whatever environment I’m in, I don’t automatically sort the objects present into mental categories like “books”, “paper”, “furniture”, etc.

That process is more conscious for me and sometimes, particularly in very familiar environments, I don’t tend (or need) to bother with it. I just sort of move among the objects and interact with them according to what seem to be their very basic properties.

This is part of what I meant by the “fine structure” thing: I think that autistics probably tend to see more of the fine structure in reality, whereas nonautistic people are more likely to see an “aliased” version (though autistic people, particularly those who have grown up without access to sufficient amounts of particular kinds of data can also develop some aliased perceptions of reality).

And for a lot of day-to-day interaction and functioning, the aliased version is probably adequate. However, the fact that it is adequate (and even superior, in the logistical sense) for the things most people seem to consider “normal functioning” doesn’t mean that normal functioning, or normal perception, is all there is. This might sound a bit odd, but one of the reasons I think it’s a good thing that autistic people exist, is because *someone* needs to keep an eye on the fine structure, and the patterns that can emerge from that (which might take longer to pop out, but that can actually lead to more accurate ways of looking at things in the long run).

I think that if all society consisted of people who all used the same heuristics, there would be tons of stuff going on all the time that nobody would even know about, and eventually this stuff might end up either posing a danger of some sort, or simply end up being beauty squandered by lack of an observer for it.

This is not to say that nonautistic people can’t learn to start seeing more of the fine structure; it’s more that there’s a very useful set of tools that tends to obscure that structure — probably the same tools you’re talking about that represent the heuristics autistics do not tend to use or apply. And these heuristics, when a person is unaware of them (or afraid to question them) can result in the buildup of tremendous bias. And bias gets in the way of the acquisition and processing of new data.

So I don’t think that Amanda’s saying that everyone needs to get rid of all their heuristics; but rather, that improperly or overzealous application of heuristics can lead to bias. Bias is the thing that colors the blanks when they are filled in in the absence of data, and though it’s probably fine to say, “I think this color might be here”, it’s not fine to say, “This color IS here, and regardless of what data I find out otherwise, I’m going to keep insisting on calling it that color because if I didn’t, my heuristic would break”. Reducing the incidence of bias can help to make heuristics more flexible and improve their accuracy.

And in my case, I still don’t tend to fill in the blanks; it still doesn’t even really compute to me HOW anyone could do that. Asking me to fill in blanks that way would be like asking me to just make something up at random. And that feels really pointless. I don’t see how, for instance, it would be in any way useful for me to try to picture what someone looks like based on reading something they wrote (assuming they haven’t described themselves). I’ve had people on more than one occasion tell me that they’ve imagined me to be much taller than I am based on reading my writing (I’m 5’3″, but for some reason the common estimate I get is 5’9″ based on how I write!) That kind of thing seems completely nonsensical to me.

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For less than (<):

&lt;

If I use heuristic A,
then n times out of n + x (where x is less than n) I will receive y utility points.
x time(s) out of n I will lose z (where z is less than y) utility points.

Sorry everyone. I forgot that less than and greater than symbols would upset the html. :(

Noah. Apology accepted! I want you to know that even though I am not autistic, I am not NT either, so I do understand how painful and difficult it is to struggle with the assumptions and expectations of others. (And look at all the interesting comments you drew out!) :D

; P

Oops . . . I mean, “non-facial ‘I’m kidding’ emoticon”.