Autism and Perception

I am still working on this page!

Please understand that I lack a rigorous, scientific understanding of these concepts - this is a mini guide, not a textbook. I hope you can find it helpful, anyway.

A sensory overview

Perception can mean a variety of things. Most often, "perception" refers to sensory perception - for example, vision, smell, or hearing.

But the word can also be used in the sense of self-perception, like knowing your own physical, mental, and emotional state. Social perception refers to noticing and interpreting social cues like tone of voice and facial expression.

And multi-modal perception, as I'm defining it here, is the complicated process of using multiple types of perception to infer something - like hearing something in your left ear, then hearing it in your right ear, and feeling the passage of time (which is also a complicated and poorly-understood type of perception), and as a result knowing where and how quickly something is moving.

Empathetic perception is a specific type of multi-modal social perception that allows you to feel something as you think someone else is feeling it - like seeing someone sweating, interpreting their half-lidded eyes as looking tired, feeling warmth and humidity, and feeling physically uncomfortable yourself, to conclude that they're probably hot and uncomfortable, too.

Perception may be subconscious or conscious. Some people may be hyper- or hyposensitive to certain stimuli, and they may be sensory-avoidant or seeking as a result. People have different thresholds for sensory pain. Certain people may have above- or below-average abilities for certain perceptions; sometimes, these may be disabling.

Some people have keen perception skills, but they have trouble turning what they perceive into useful information. Someone may not be sure how to communicate what they perceive in words. Someone's perception may vary based on how busy their mind is with other things.

Below, I explain these different types of perception to the best of my ability, providing examples and categorizations from my lived experience and what others have told me. Then, I have written a brief "what am I feeling" guide to help determine exactly that. If you have, like I do, suicidal feelings that are triggered and exacerbated by sensory strain and social frustration, try the suicidal crisis self-help workbook.

Sensory perception

- A list of environmental sensory stuff, basically. outsie of yourself (interior stuff later)

Vision - sensing color, visual clutter, sameness, movement, emptiness, color intensity

Texture - *maybe link to aside about food issues? or separate section?

Sound - music/melodies, voices, pitches (relative and perfect) and harmonies, consistency/repetition, mechanical noises, drawn-out noises (air con, wind, humming), silence

When sensory perceptions become issues, it is usually due to one or multiple aspects:

• The stimulus is too much (you are hypersensitive to this stimulus)
• The stimulus is too little (you are hyposensitive to this stimulus)
• The stimulus is too repetitive or constant
• The stimulus is too unfamiliar or sudden
• The stimulus is not the correct stimulus of that type, based on what you need
• The stimulus is uncontrollable

Sensory issues and pain may be obvious to you, but not to others. While it's helpful for other people to learn about your experiences and accept them as impactful to you, it's also good for you to understand that someone who does not notice and feel things like you do will struggle to understand.

Sensory overloads are often associated with autism - most of us report having sensory issues to some degree. But overwhelm can also happen to people with other conditions like ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, and migraines. Overwhelm can also happen to neurotypical people in extreme scenarios, like at an especially loud concert, or when wearing a very itchy sweater. I talk about disclosure on the autism conversation guide (you'll have to scroll down). In short, if you need to describe sensory overload to someone, it may be helpful to use language they understand, since relatively few people are autistic compared to those with anxiety and itchy sweaters.

Sometimes, there isn't much to be done about overwhelming sensory experiences. In some cases, accomodating someone with sensory strain is not possible. For example, a train station is going to be full of noisy people and trains, and there is no room on the platform for secluded areas. In situations like these, you can try to accommodate yourself by wearing headphones. (I hate headphones and I'd rather be overwhelmed by the train than the headphones!)

Other times, while accommodations are technically possible, it is not possible to get other people to go along with them. A loud music concert with booming speakers, screaming fans, and a laser show sounds like hell to me, and I will not go to one. If I did, I'd want something different than every other person at the concert - after all, many people seem to want to go to concerts for the action. Therefore, I accept that concerts just aren't for me.

If something like a social group, workplace, business, government facility, or venue is trying to accommodate you, though, and they are doing a poor job of it, it makes sense to let them know. For example, 'sensory rooms' are showing up at places like airports and sports stadiums. They're often packed with bright neon colours and bubble tubes, because they are designed for children and business executives. (I mean that they are designed and approved by business executives, who think they look people-pleasing and good for keeping customers. But the idea of a posh bloke in an ironed suit sitting on a pink beanbag playing with blocks does make me happy.) I think this comes from the false impressions that everyone calms down from sensory overload in the same way, and that only children can feel overloaded and need space. Neither of these ideas is true.

No one should try to tell you that "it isn't that bad", "it isn't a big deal", "you can handle it", or "you'll get over it" when you are telling them honestly that something is causing you major distress. When people say these things, they are not trying to be empathetic; they are saying, "I am not listening to what you are saying, and I am not going to do anything to accommodate you".

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Self-perception - physical state

Under this category: coordination, depth perception, knowledge of force used and required, dropping things,

Under this category: hunger, thirst, bathroom needs, physical pain, sexual arousal, *concentration - or under alexithymia?

Proprioception and interoception

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Self-perception - thought and emotion

Thought - anxiety n' stuff

Under this category: emotion (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, nostalgia, surprise, disappointment...), love *is love an emotion? and care, sense of responsibility, beliefs, sub- and unconscious, mental pain/distress, overwhelm, gender identity, romantic attraction, theory of mind, logic

alexithymia

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Social perception

Autistic people are famous for being bad at this, but we're discovering it's more complicated than a simple deficit of perception

Love and queerness, platonic/romantic, wondering why autistic people tend to be queer/think of relationships in different ways. probably just speculation on my part

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Empathy and theory of mind

I define these concepts in the context of communication with other people on the autistic conversation page.

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Perception and memory

People make associations between sensory stimuli and emotions, memories

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Stimming

Types of stimming (does anyone else...)

What stimming does, and how it helps. increasing some senses and decreasing others/focusing on unimodal and not multi-modal perceptions

On the other side, sensory deprivation - a place to "recharge".

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What am I feeling? mini guide

Listening to body; understanding relationship between physical symptoms of mental state

Guide: inside-to-outside detection. starting with factors inside your body, then on your body, then near your body, then far away from your body - like scanning

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Back to the autism main page:
Autism

AWARENESS, ACCEPTANCE, ADVOCACY

AUTISTIC RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

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