Welcome to a new section of the blog, which I've tentatively titled "Reading the Research." Due to my work with the Self Advocates of Michigan, I'm having to keep more abreast of the latest in scientific advances, and several things have caught my eye lately. So this will be a section where I link you to a summary of a recent scientific paper, then discuss why it caught my eye and how the article's topic applies to my life on the autism spectrum.
Today's article has to do with eye contact: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170615213252.htm
I've mentioned before that I find eye contact difficult, and that I had to learn how much to look at people (about 85%) and how much to look away (about 15%). I think I've even mentioned that looking someone in the eye is kind of like getting hit upside the head with a baseball bat. The more familiar the person, the less hard I get hit with the bat, but on the whole it's still an unpleasant experience, made very familiar by societal expectations. After all, if the person isn't looking at you, it seems to most people like they aren't paying attention.
The article talks about lack of eye contact being due to overstimulation like it's shocking news or something, which makes me wonder if they talked to any of the people they did their brain scans on... but anyway, they measured brain activation in autistic and neurotypical people using fMRI scans. They found, to my complete lack of surprise, that having to look at someone's eyes "overactivates" a section of the autistic brain, causing unpleasantness. The researchers had the bright idea of using difficult types of emotions for the faces, and so they also found that it wasn't simply fearful eyes that were unpleasant for autistic people, it was any eyes. Happy, angry, neutral, or fearful, it all messed with the autistic participants.
In truth, I've never tried to scientifically evaluate how poorly I react to faces and eyes, so much as simply tried to live with it. But it's nice to have science to back up my unpleasant experience.
Today's article has to do with eye contact: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170615213252.htm
I've mentioned before that I find eye contact difficult, and that I had to learn how much to look at people (about 85%) and how much to look away (about 15%). I think I've even mentioned that looking someone in the eye is kind of like getting hit upside the head with a baseball bat. The more familiar the person, the less hard I get hit with the bat, but on the whole it's still an unpleasant experience, made very familiar by societal expectations. After all, if the person isn't looking at you, it seems to most people like they aren't paying attention.
The article talks about lack of eye contact being due to overstimulation like it's shocking news or something, which makes me wonder if they talked to any of the people they did their brain scans on... but anyway, they measured brain activation in autistic and neurotypical people using fMRI scans. They found, to my complete lack of surprise, that having to look at someone's eyes "overactivates" a section of the autistic brain, causing unpleasantness. The researchers had the bright idea of using difficult types of emotions for the faces, and so they also found that it wasn't simply fearful eyes that were unpleasant for autistic people, it was any eyes. Happy, angry, neutral, or fearful, it all messed with the autistic participants.
In truth, I've never tried to scientifically evaluate how poorly I react to faces and eyes, so much as simply tried to live with it. But it's nice to have science to back up my unpleasant experience.
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