Visual Figure-Ground Issues in Autism?

[righan]

Okay ... so I can find lots of stuff that talks about auditory figure-ground issues in Autism but not visual, and I have both ... so on my quest to try to determine if I have ASD ... I thought I'd ask if anyone knows about visual figure ground issues in Autism.

In case anyone doesn't know what the heck I'm talking about ... auditory figure-ground issues are the inability to eliminate irrelevant sounds in your environment in the way an NT does. You hear all sounds equally. (or more equally, depending on severity I guess)

So, for instance, with me things like when when I'm in a crowded room everyone, regardless of distance, more or less sounds like they are at the same volume or is at least all overlapped together. I'm immersed in a horrible ocean of sounds that seems defeaning and the person next to me is just easy (or hard) to make out as the person on the other side of the room. In a very crowded place, I am essentially deaf. I watch my friends talking at the table around me and I have no idea what they are saying. I usually end up just staring off into space, as its almost trance inducing.

So, THAT I know can be an ASD trait. The question is, if you have the same thing from a visual perspective ... is that ALSO an ASD trait ... the logic follows that it should be, but since i haven't found anything written on the subject I wanted to clarify.

What does it look like visually?

Well.. for instance, at grocery stores, when I look down an aisle ... my brain can't seem to eliminate the irrelevant products in order to see the ones I'm looking for. I see them all, with equal priority. I can see them but its like I can't process what I'm seeing. If I just try to 'scan' the isle with my eyes I'll end up completely overlooking what I'm looking for ... often multiple times. I have to be methodical about it. I usually have to go to the beginning of the isle and look at each product, one at at time, starting at the end count them off .... even then, it takes a lot of mental energy because I have to force it and it can cause headaches ... It helps if I touch the products, but people don't like that so I don't do it unless I'm really loosing it. Its pretty common for me to end up having to spend a couple hours in a store if its brand new or if they re-arrange it ... and I often have people think I'm an employee because I'm stalking up and down the same aisles going through each product. It looks like I'm doing stock.

Then I also can't read menus in restaurants because my brain wants to read all the columns at once I think ... I just know I can see it ... but I can't make sense of it. As long as my eyes can see the the other columns (or the other items on the menu) ... I have this 'wall' that keeps me from really being able to process any of them ... their just meaningless ... I can sort of deal with it if I touch the menu items with my hands and then force my mind ... but thats uncomfortable ... the best option is to actually cover everything on the menu except what I want to see ... of course, that kind of draws attention ... so I try not to do it.

I have this problem with lots of other kinds of visual data processing ... paragraphs when they get too big (or too dense) ... newspapers ... phone books and encyclopedias ... some art ... busy computer interfaces .... modern movies that are really busy can be a problem ... anything with too much going on that isn't clearly defined as separate visually. Its really irritating, because I can SEE it ... I know its there ... I know what it is ... I just can't make it resolve. Its the torment of Tantalus.

So anyone know?

Thanks

 

[Ronin82]

OMG, is THAT what that is??? I have that!! Thought I was just being neurotic...didn't know it had a name! Cool, thanks! I can honestly say it makes going to bookstores pretty distressing. I have an almost OCD-style way to read every book spine to see if any titles catch my fancy. Explains why it takes HOURS to get through a bookstore. This phenomena made studying in college pretty difficult too. When my brain overloaded and shut down, NOTHING was being processed anymore!

Wow, I'm flabbergasted. I didn't realize it was an autistic trait, and perfectly normal for me. Do you know what this means??? It means my intense concentration skills in grade and high school really DID burnout my brain! It wasn't just me being unfit for school, it was an autistic brain being forced to process too much info!!! OMG!!!!!

 

[Aspychata]

You learn something new everyday at this site.
l kinda suffer with this with faces. l see giant ocean of faces and l disconnect these days. I handle crowds okay but l no longer like to look at people, could be related to some issues l was forced to deal with.

 

[Misery]

Aye, I have that. Both, actually, audio and visual. Well, sort of.

But most of the time I find it to be an advantage. I dont miss anything. ANYTHING. If someone were to try to sneak up on me while I was "busy" or "distracted" by other stuff? Wont work. I knew they were there the moment they entered the area, and I know exactly where they're moving. Someone trying to come up behind me and startle me with a loud sound is only going to get "that's annoying, thanks" in response. I dont get startled. I already knew what they were doing.

It's the same visually. I'll spot everything. I dont need to be looking directly at something to spot it. Gets reactions from people around me sometimes. "How did you even see that?"

But I'm able to process many, many things at once. I tend to think it comes from having played so many video games since I was like, 3. You wanna keep up with some of the really difficult games, you better be able to really process all the lunacy that's going on. So it sort of built up the ability to do that over time.

The trouble though is if there's not ENOUGH to process. Like back in school, the only thing happening at all in most classes was the teacher droning on about whatever. There wasnt anything else to notice/follow, and so all of that "processing power" just floats around and then I totally space out. Once I've spaced out, I stop noticing pretty much everything. And then 20 minutes later I sort of "pop" back into a normal state, suddenly realizing that A: I didnt hear anything the teacher was saying, and maybe B:, my hand is entirely covered in ink from the pen I didnt realize I was holding (that happened alot). Stuff like this still happens if I get really bored or something. Granted, it can happen randomly too, but... usually when there's nothing going on in a boring environment.

So yeah, that's how it works for me. A bit different than the norm, I guess.

 

[Ken S.]

Yes it's part of having SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) which is the common link in ASD and Schizophrenia.
Psychiatry Online

 

[Streetwise]

OMG, is THAT what that is??? I have that!! Thought I was just being neurotic...didn't know it had a name! Cool, thanks! I can honestly say it makes going to bookstores pretty distressing. I have an almost OCD-style way to read every book spine to see if any titles catch my fancy. Explains why it takes HOURS to get through a bookstore. This phenomena made studying in college pretty difficult too. When my brain overloaded and shut down, NOTHING was being processed anymore!

Wow, I'm flabbergasted. I didn't realize it was an autistic trait, and perfectly normal for me. Do you know what this means??? It means my intense concentration skills in grade and high school really DID burnout my brain! It wasn't just me being unfit for school, it was an autistic brain being forced to process too much info!!! OMG!!!!!

just to give you hope the brain has a defence mechanism it’s called I just don’t have the energy anymore or if you’re British from certain areas I can’t be arsed ( note for admins arsed isn’t a swear ( curse )word, it’s just the Anglo-Saxon term for your buttocks , not everybody in the UK speaks received English ,some people know it as BBC English, some people still speak a mixture of old high German or Norse, Gaelic, Angle, Saxon , anglo-Saxon ,There is also a bit of Hindi like -bungalow

 

[Progster]

I have both I think - not so bad in a familiar environment, but in an unfamiliar environment like an new supermarket I tend to need to walk through it a lot slower... I look at and take in everything. This is one of the issues when I return to the UK and go shopping with my mum or sister - they want to whizz through the shop, but I can't and get left behind. It can take me a long time to choose, for example, a wine because I look at all of the bottles. I'm also quite good at spotting things that others miss - good for foraging, I often find more or am the first to find something.

I'm also easily distracted and bugged by things on my screen and seek to keep them to a minimum; things like ads, gifs, videos and images that aren't relevant to the content.

 

[Stuart1975]

Okay ... so I can find lots of stuff that talks about auditory figure-ground issues in Autism but not visual, and I have both ... so on my quest to try to determine if I have ASD ... I thought I'd ask if anyone knows about visual figure ground issues in Autism.

In case anyone doesn't know what the heck I'm talking about ... auditory figure-ground issues are the inability to eliminate irrelevant sounds in your environment in the way an NT does. You hear all sounds equally. (or more equally, depending on severity I guess)

So, for instance, with me things like when when I'm in a crowded room everyone, regardless of distance, more or less sounds like they are at the same volume or is at least all overlapped together. I'm immersed in a horrible ocean of sounds that seems defeaning and the person next to me is just easy (or hard) to make out as the person on the other side of the room. In a very crowded place, I am essentially deaf. I watch my friends talking at the table around me and I have no idea what they are saying. I usually end up just staring off into space, as its almost trance inducing.

So, THAT I know can be an ASD trait. The question is, if you have the same thing from a visual perspective ... is that ALSO an ASD trait ... the logic follows that it should be, but since i haven't found anything written on the subject I wanted to clarify.

What does it look like visually?

Well.. for instance, at grocery stores, when I look down an aisle ... my brain can't seem to eliminate the irrelevant products in order to see the ones I'm looking for. I see them all, with equal priority. I can see them but its like I can't process what I'm seeing. If I just try to 'scan' the isle with my eyes I'll end up completely overlooking what I'm looking for ... often multiple times. I have to be methodical about it. I usually have to go to the beginning of the isle and look at each product, one at at time, starting at the end count them off .... even then, it takes a lot of mental energy because I have to force it and it can cause headaches ... It helps if I touch the products, but people don't like that so I don't do it unless I'm really loosing it. Its pretty common for me to end up having to spend a couple hours in a store if its brand new or if they re-arrange it ... and I often have people think I'm an employee because I'm stalking up and down the same aisles going through each product. It looks like I'm doing stock.

Then I also can't read menus in restaurants because my brain wants to read all the columns at once I think ... I just know I can see it ... but I can't make sense of it. As long as my eyes can see the the other columns (or the other items on the menu) ... I have this 'wall' that keeps me from really being able to process any of them ... their just meaningless ... I can sort of deal with it if I touch the menu items with my hands and then force my mind ... but thats uncomfortable ... the best option is to actually cover everything on the menu except what I want to see ... of course, that kind of draws attention ... so I try not to do it.

I have this problem with lots of other kinds of visual data processing ... paragraphs when they get too big (or too dense) ... newspapers ... phone books and encyclopedias ... some art ... busy computer interfaces .... modern movies that are really busy can be a problem ... anything with too much going on that isn't clearly defined as separate visually. Its really irritating, because I can SEE it ... I know its there ... I know what it is ... I just can't make it resolve. Its the torment of Tantalus.

So anyone know?

Thanks

Ha ha you remind me of being at school when all of the kids/students were talking at once creating a mishmash of constant incoherent Noise aaarrrggg!!!! Btw I do the same at grocery store/ supermarket

 

[righan]

Thank you for the responses ... and yes ... its a wonderful thing to finally put a name to these things.

To the comment about people not being able to sneak up on you ... I'm the same way. As long as there aren't so many noise sources that I can't hear anything at all.

 

[Judge]

Kind of reminds me of a line from the film "Terminator 2". Where young John Conner asks the Terminator if he can see anything as he speedily drives through the dark. Where the Terminator replies, "I see everything".

Yeah. I can't selectively filter out sight or sound. Sometimes it can be a real pain, apart from a major distraction. Worse perhaps, considering I have tinnitus in my right ear. Ringing that never really goes away.

 

[tlc]

I've said this before but my college instructor often said "100% inspection is 80% accurate". It's true, you put your energy in trying to see everything and you end up missing things every time. Eventually enough times over you'll get nearly everything. This was in regards to engineering drawings but it can apply to many things. For example me in a music store or bookstore, almost every time I look through the rack again I see something different.

 

[SDRSpark]

Aye, I have that. Both, actually, audio and visual. Well, sort of.

But most of the time I find it to be an advantage. I dont miss anything. ANYTHING. If someone were to try to sneak up on me while I was "busy" or "distracted" by other stuff? Wont work. I knew they were there the moment they entered the area, and I know exactly where they're moving. Someone trying to come up behind me and startle me with a loud sound is only going to get "that's annoying, thanks" in response. I dont get startled. I already knew what they were doing.

It's the same visually. I'll spot everything. I dont need to be looking directly at something to spot it. Gets reactions from people around me sometimes. "How did you even see that?"

But I'm able to process many, many things at once. I tend to think it comes from having played so many video games since I was like, 3. You wanna keep up with some of the really difficult games, you better be able to really process all the lunacy that's going on. So it sort of built up the ability to do that over time.

The trouble though is if there's not ENOUGH to process. Like back in school, the only thing happening at all in most classes was the teacher droning on about whatever. There wasnt anything else to notice/follow, and so all of that "processing power" just floats around and then I totally space out. Once I've spaced out, I stop noticing pretty much everything. And then 20 minutes later I sort of "pop" back into a normal state, suddenly realizing that A: I didnt hear anything the teacher was saying, and maybe B:, my hand is entirely covered in ink from the pen I didnt realize I was holding (that happened alot). Stuff like this still happens if I get really bored or something. Granted, it can happen randomly too, but... usually when there's nothing going on in a boring environment.

So yeah, that's how it works for me. A bit different than the norm, I guess.

I'm the person who could look at the Cistine Chapel ceiling and say "he missed a spot!"

I have more problems with auditory processing than visual processing, but if I'm overwhelmed or overstimulated I get both. Certain stores are really difficult - it's like everything is going by on a TV screen and I have to force my brain and body to interact.

I also have problems picking what I want out of a lineup - I can be staring right at something and not see it.