Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.
Today's article is one of those that really underlines to me how much of an alien I am sometimes. It's less the immediate study (having to do with junk food versus healthy food), and more the overarching principle behind the study.
The study itself focused on teaching people to choose healthy foods over junk foods when feeding their video game avatar. The game gave immediate feedback on your food choices, unlike real life, and the avatar would comment on feeling ill if fed junk food, or feeling healthy when fed healthy food. Very simplistic, but the results translated a day later to the participants' choices for feeding themselves.
The overarching idea for this is that when presented with the consequences of their choices, people tended to make better choices. This isn't... or at least shouldn't... be rocket science. But most people don't spend a lot of time on every last decision, so carefully considering the consequences isn't really a normal behavior.
I'm not going to say I spend time considering every single decision I make, but if this study is anything to go by, I spend a lot more time overall considering the decisions I make, and the consequences of those decisions. This is true on both large and small scales.
An example of small-scale would be the calculations I run in my head regarding small talk in places like the grocery store, when interacting with a stranger. Chances are, I won't need to speak to that person ever again, but I still try to treat them like a real person who is worthy of my interest and attention rather than passing scenery. This actually requires mental effort, even though it really shouldn't. I do this purposely, in hopes of benefiting the person I'm speaking to and not making their day worse by blowing them off.
A larger scale decision might be something like how long a holiday trip needs to be, or what car I'm going to buy, or whether to accept a job. If the trip is too short, my in-laws will feel neglected. If my car isn't a good one, I'll have to repair it more often or even get a different one. And a job will take time away from other parts of my life, especially if it involves travel.
Most people tend to take a bit more time on large decisions like these, so I'm not actually sure how my decision-making process compares. I will say that the last time I went car shopping, I narrowed my choice down to a single manufacturer, model, and two different years. This made finding my car rather difficult, but I was fortunately able to find one that fit the bill.
Perhaps a better example is the rules of driving. There are the legal laws that you have to learn and follow to the letter to get your driver's license in the first place. Those need no careful examination or decision-making. The second tier of laws, which sometimes supersedes the first, is where this really becomes clear.
When you come to a stop sign, do you follow the legal law and come to a complete stop behind the stop line (or with your mirror even with the stop sign) before you proceed through the intersection? Most people don't. I usually don't, either. The spirit of the law, I think, is to keep people proceeding safely through the intersection without any collisions. If there's nobody at the intersection (including pedestrians and cyclists), and you've double-checked that, you don't, I think, really need to come to a complete stop at the stop sign before going through. In fact, if you do that every time, and someone's behind you, they may get very annoyed at you.
Another second-tier rule of driving is stop lights. The legal rules are (roughly): green means "go", yellow means "prepare to stop," and red means "stop." The actual behavior pattern followed by drivers (at least in the US) is green means "go", red means "stop", and yellow means "either speed up to get into/through the intersection before it turns red, or start stopping now because you're sure you won't make it."
Do other people consciously think about this stuff, or do most people just kind of intuitively pick up on it from watching others and let that second-tier rule supersede the first-tier one? As best I can tell, it's the latter. For me, on this and many other things, it was the former.
Beam me up, Scotty?
The study itself focused on teaching people to choose healthy foods over junk foods when feeding their video game avatar. The game gave immediate feedback on your food choices, unlike real life, and the avatar would comment on feeling ill if fed junk food, or feeling healthy when fed healthy food. Very simplistic, but the results translated a day later to the participants' choices for feeding themselves.
The overarching idea for this is that when presented with the consequences of their choices, people tended to make better choices. This isn't... or at least shouldn't... be rocket science. But most people don't spend a lot of time on every last decision, so carefully considering the consequences isn't really a normal behavior.
I'm not going to say I spend time considering every single decision I make, but if this study is anything to go by, I spend a lot more time overall considering the decisions I make, and the consequences of those decisions. This is true on both large and small scales.
An example of small-scale would be the calculations I run in my head regarding small talk in places like the grocery store, when interacting with a stranger. Chances are, I won't need to speak to that person ever again, but I still try to treat them like a real person who is worthy of my interest and attention rather than passing scenery. This actually requires mental effort, even though it really shouldn't. I do this purposely, in hopes of benefiting the person I'm speaking to and not making their day worse by blowing them off.
A larger scale decision might be something like how long a holiday trip needs to be, or what car I'm going to buy, or whether to accept a job. If the trip is too short, my in-laws will feel neglected. If my car isn't a good one, I'll have to repair it more often or even get a different one. And a job will take time away from other parts of my life, especially if it involves travel.
Most people tend to take a bit more time on large decisions like these, so I'm not actually sure how my decision-making process compares. I will say that the last time I went car shopping, I narrowed my choice down to a single manufacturer, model, and two different years. This made finding my car rather difficult, but I was fortunately able to find one that fit the bill.
Perhaps a better example is the rules of driving. There are the legal laws that you have to learn and follow to the letter to get your driver's license in the first place. Those need no careful examination or decision-making. The second tier of laws, which sometimes supersedes the first, is where this really becomes clear.
When you come to a stop sign, do you follow the legal law and come to a complete stop behind the stop line (or with your mirror even with the stop sign) before you proceed through the intersection? Most people don't. I usually don't, either. The spirit of the law, I think, is to keep people proceeding safely through the intersection without any collisions. If there's nobody at the intersection (including pedestrians and cyclists), and you've double-checked that, you don't, I think, really need to come to a complete stop at the stop sign before going through. In fact, if you do that every time, and someone's behind you, they may get very annoyed at you.
Another second-tier rule of driving is stop lights. The legal rules are (roughly): green means "go", yellow means "prepare to stop," and red means "stop." The actual behavior pattern followed by drivers (at least in the US) is green means "go", red means "stop", and yellow means "either speed up to get into/through the intersection before it turns red, or start stopping now because you're sure you won't make it."
Do other people consciously think about this stuff, or do most people just kind of intuitively pick up on it from watching others and let that second-tier rule supersede the first-tier one? As best I can tell, it's the latter. For me, on this and many other things, it was the former.
Beam me up, Scotty?
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