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 explains a magical superpower most allistic/neurotypical people have. Have you ever had to focus really hard on a single conversation in a really crowded, loud room, like a sports bar, or a club, or even a noisy gymnasium? Maybe it was tough, but you managed to pick out that one person or conversation amidst the barrage of other sounds and conversations. Cool, right? Helpful?
Turns out your brain does this by selectively amplifying the sound of the conversation you want to hear. Kind of like turning up a particular microphone on the sound board while turning the main volume of everything else down. That's a superpower, and it's one many autistic people do not have, or don't have as great an ability in as normal humans.
On one hand, this means we're more sensitive to changes in the environment, and can often track down pesky noises others might miss. The faint but present rasp in the whine of a refrigerator may herald a part going bad, and we'll know it before the part fails and the contents of the refrigerator are lost. Or we'll be able to detect the sound of a belt going bad on a car long before you actually need to replace it. I've done both of these in the last few years.
On the other hand, a crowded party or sports bar with lots of chatter and noise can be nearly impossible to have a conversation in. I even recently had trouble hearing a friend talking as we sat in front of a TV with YouTube videos running. The TV wasn't even up that loud, and she wasn't even talking that quietly. I just couldn't separate what she was saying from the unpredictability of the videos.
It's not that I don't have the ability at all, though it sure feels like it when it's failing me. But on bad days, I might as well not have it. All the noise in the world comes to my brain unprioritized and bewilderingly loud. On good days, I do have some of that automated prioritization and volume control that everyone else can take for granted. It's a really cool ability, and I enjoy having it when I do.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
Today's article explains a magical superpower most allistic/neurotypical people have. Have you ever had to focus really hard on a single conversation in a really crowded, loud room, like a sports bar, or a club, or even a noisy gymnasium? Maybe it was tough, but you managed to pick out that one person or conversation amidst the barrage of other sounds and conversations. Cool, right? Helpful?
Turns out your brain does this by selectively amplifying the sound of the conversation you want to hear. Kind of like turning up a particular microphone on the sound board while turning the main volume of everything else down. That's a superpower, and it's one many autistic people do not have, or don't have as great an ability in as normal humans.
On one hand, this means we're more sensitive to changes in the environment, and can often track down pesky noises others might miss. The faint but present rasp in the whine of a refrigerator may herald a part going bad, and we'll know it before the part fails and the contents of the refrigerator are lost. Or we'll be able to detect the sound of a belt going bad on a car long before you actually need to replace it. I've done both of these in the last few years.
On the other hand, a crowded party or sports bar with lots of chatter and noise can be nearly impossible to have a conversation in. I even recently had trouble hearing a friend talking as we sat in front of a TV with YouTube videos running. The TV wasn't even up that loud, and she wasn't even talking that quietly. I just couldn't separate what she was saying from the unpredictability of the videos.
It's not that I don't have the ability at all, though it sure feels like it when it's failing me. But on bad days, I might as well not have it. All the noise in the world comes to my brain unprioritized and bewilderingly loud. On good days, I do have some of that automated prioritization and volume control that everyone else can take for granted. It's a really cool ability, and I enjoy having it when I do.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
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