Autism- picture thinking

Temple Grandin

http://blog.beliefnet.com/moviemom/2010/02/temple-grandin-on-thinking-in.html

Introducing a new idea Sensory thinking; pictures, smells, touch, taste and sound.

Temple Grandin, the subject of the new movie starring Claire Danes, was diagnosed with autism as a child. In this talk at TED, she talks about how her mind works — sharing her ability to “think in pictures,” which helps her solve problems that neurotypical brains might miss. She makes the case that the world needs people on the autism spectrum: visual thinkers, pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers, and all kinds of smart geeky kids.

Recognizing the emotions through our unconscious at the speed of a Blink

With the publication of several best-selling books, reporter Malcolm Gladwell has emerged in the 2000s as one of the most influential figures in American letters. Extending the trademark style that he developed in 2000’s The Tipping Point, Gladwell’s research in 2005’s Blink spans many different disciplines and areas of study in a dazzlingly comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms and processes that underlie our ability to make decisions rapidly.

Gladwell begins with several chapters that illustrate the ways that very accurate decisions can be made rapidly. Indeed, according to the anecdotes and case studies that the author presents in the introduction and the first several chapters, our initial, intuitive response to a person, object, or event -- the one that transpires in the first few milliseconds of our exposure to it -- is often the one that proves to be correct.

This ability is predicated upon the process that Gladwell terms "thin slicing." The human mind can often examine a situation and skim all of the information that is necessary to make a correct decision and plot a course of action almost instantaneously. The most accurate "thin slices" are often those that involve our assessment of the emotional or mental states of others. Apparently, evolutionary processes that have unfolded over the course of many millennia have allowed us to be able to assess the actions and motives of our companions with a split-second glance.

However, although the human mind’s ability to thin-slice is remarkable, its utility is tempered by a number of distinct characteristics. First, the thin-slicing mechanisms in the brain reside almost entirely in the unconscious, rendering it impossible for us to access them deliberately. Indeed, as Gladwell points out, we often don’t know what our unconscious knows or how it has helped us to make a decision or choose a course of action. It seems that people often develop their own, alternate accounts of decision-making to explain away the brain’s rapid thin-slicing ability.

Over the course of the next several chapters, Gladwell recounts the ways in which our sociocultural context can impede our ability to benefit from the thin-slicing skill of the unconscious. Most significantly, he asserts, our vast stores of prejudices and biases can often hijack the unconscious and disallow access to our thin-slicing, intuitive abilities.

However, once we learn the power of rapid cognition, we can develop and incorporate solutions that will protect our thin-slicing unconscious from the undue influence of prejudice. Gladwell suggests implementing techniques that will short-circuit prejudices in our every day lives. In this way, he contends, we can reconnect with and benefit from the power of the blink.

Don Trent Jacobs linking to Julian Jaynes

Professor Don Trent Jacobs (aka Wahinkpe Topa) discusses hypnotism, an exploitable vestige of pre-consciousness, noting that our vulnerabilities are being professionally exploited to direct formulate an acceptable collective cognitive imperative.


Links Julians Jaynes idea of consciousness being either linked to God or in modern day to high authority to a hypnotic like state, that leads societies at large to blindly ingest information given by Authority. 

Julian Jaynes- Inspiration

From the inside of the cover:

"What is human consciousness, where did it come from, and what is its place in the material world? These are the questions that have puzzled mankind for centuries, and here presented in an entirely new, yet still soberly scientific way to look at human nature – one that demands a revolutionary reinterpretation of human history and human behavior.

Base on recent laboratory studies of the brain and a close reading of the archaeological evidence, psychologist Julian Jaynes shows us how ancient peoples from Mesopotamia to Peru could not “think” as we do today, and were therefore not conscious. Unable to introspect, they experienced auditory hallucinations – voices of gods, actually heard as in the Old Testament or the Iliad – which, coming from the brain’s right hemisphere, told a person what to do in circumstances of novelty or stress. This ancient mentality is called the bicameral mind.

Only catastrophe and cataclysm forced mankind to learn consciousness, and that happened only 3,000 years ago.

Not a product of animal evolution, but of human history and culture, consciousness is ultimately grounded in the physiology of the brain’s right and left hemispheres.

Julian Jaynes examines three forms of human awareness – the bicameral or god-run man; the modern or problem-solving man; and contemporary forms of throwbacks to bicamerality: hypnotism, schizophrenia, poetic and religious frenzy, among other phenomena."

Emotional facial reactions

Meditation Analogy

Pictorial mind using this as a focus for meditation 

where as

Litterary mind uses this as a focus for Meditation

 PEACE

?

A focus

Teachings




Learning




Images




Different Cognitive abilities 

Paul Ekmans and Micro expression

Paul Ekman's research on micro expressions and how it is possible to detect lies by being aware of these micro expressions. These types of expressions are not obvious and therefore could not be used as a form of communication unless studied. 


Here is a video where Ekman explains this:

Paul Ekman's 6 facial expressions

Anger, fright, disgust, surprise, happiness and sadness

What is interesting to me is that as Ekman's studies show these facial expressions associated with some emotions are basic or biologically universal to all human beings. These face expressions occur naturally and are means of communications between all animals that can be understood by all animals.  

For example all humans know that when a dog looks like this his is not happy. 

Face-expressions is a type of picture thinking that enables the quickest communication. This type of communication does not have to be taught. 

E.E Cummings

I have recently bought a book on E.E Cumming recommended to me by a classmate Anna-karin


Here is one of the poems I enjoyed. The way the words are placed on the page forms a picture or enhances the words to project their meaning.




it's jolly
odd what pops into
your jolly tête when the 
jolly shells begin dropping jolly fast you
hear the rrmp and 
then nearerandnearerandNEARER
and before
you can


!


& we're


NOT
(oh----
---i say


that's jolly odd
old thing,jolly
odd,jolly
jolly odd isn't
it jolly odd.


(p.94 Another E.E Cummings edited by richard kostelanetz)

Excerpt from the book "the gift of dyslexia"

How dyslexia Happens


Apparently, some people are born with a genetic code that enables them to utilize the part of thier brain that alters and creates perceptions. Being born with this genetic code doesn't give dyslexia, it only makes it possible for them to develop it. this theory explains why dyslexia seems to follow family lines and why many experts consider it to be hereditary.
Developing Dyslexia involves some rather complex steps, and the timing has to be precise. In fact, developing dyslexia is so complicated that it's a wonder anyone can do it. 


An Early Start


A dyslexic didn't start to develop dyslexia in third grade or First Grade, or even Kindergarden. The Process began long before that....
Probably it is between the ages of three and six months that dyslexics begin the development of thier special abilities, skills and deficiencies...


The potencial Dyslexic in Infancy


Psychologist say a three-month-old infant is just beginning to recognize facial features. that meansthe infant can focus the eyes and control convergence of the two mental images they produce; otherwise it couldn't even se a face. Although a three-moths-old can see, the child hasn't yet learned to control its neck muscles in order to look in a certain direction. the child simply sees what ever happens to move into its field of vision. 


Let's create a scenario of a potential Dyslexic, P.D. for short. Lets make little P.D. three months old and put him in a crib. From his perspective, all little P.D can see is the end of a chest of drawers with someone's elbow sticking out past the edge. 


If little P.D. happens to trigger the brain cells that alter his perception, he will no longer see what his eyes see; he will see something else. At that point, if P.D. is curious as to who the elbow belongs to, it would be very easy for him to simply add the other features to the elbow ad see the face of the person. when he sees the face, he can recognize wether or not it's the person that feeds him....


(The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald Davis p73-75)




Picture thinking


The primary thought process of the dyslexic is a nonverbal picture thinking mode that occurs at 32 pictures per second. In a second, a verbal thinker could have between two and five thoughts (individual words conceptualized) while a picture thinker would have 32 (individual pictures conceptualized). Mathematically, this works out to between six and ten times as many thoughts. 


There is also the principle expressed by the old adage "A picture is worth a thousand words." A picture thinker could think a single picture of a concept that might require hundreds or thousands of words to describe. Einstein's theory of relativity came to him in a daydream in which he traveled beside a beam of light. His vision lasted only seconds, yet spawned scores of textbooks and attempt to explain it. To Einstein, the concept was simple; to the average person, it is nearly incomprehensible.


Picture thinking is estimated to be, overall, 400 to 2,000 times faster that verbal thinking, obviously it varies with the complexity of the individual pictures. But there is more to it that just a difference in speed. picture thinking is more thorough, deeper and more comprehensive.


Verbal thought is linear in time, performed by making sentences one word at a time, whereas picture thinking is evolutionary. The picture grows as the mental process adds meore subconcepts to the overall concept. 


Pictured thoughts are as thorough or deep as these mental pictures are accurate in portraying the meanings of the words that the person would use to describe the same thoughts. 


We could say pictured thoughts are of substance while verbal thoughts are significant sound. 


(A gift of dyslexia, by Ronald davis page 100-101)

A story that led to the thought of pictures

The feeling of being unable to communicate within a system created for the majority. How do I give my surrounding what they want? Relieve the frustration that has been created because I can’t seem to understand what is evident to the rest.

Letters make words. Words need to be depicted to make sounds, which make words. This is evident to the majority and this is how education is communicated. To me letters were just like pictures, which didn’t make sounds. When I looked at shop signs; I didn’t read the letters. I looked at the colors, the shapes, I heard the name being pronounced; and connected the name I heard with the picture I saw.

What does this mean? I was at a disadvantage, the means in which I was supposed to learn; didn’t work for me. I was misunderstood, the means in which I should communicate; didn’t work for me.

The feeling of success happened when I was understood. It was like everybody had been talking to me in another language and finally someone started speaking to me in my language. I was taught to understand how the majority communicated and how I could learn to communicate in a way that was understood by the majority.