So if you were colour blind would you refute the existence of colours you cannot see? That is what you are doing when you refute non verbal communication. Like a colourblind person insisting that we prove the existance of a colour they cannot see.
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No, because I can still measure those colors, just like the infrared and ultraviolet which I cannot see now. So I have evidence. I go further than most people the other way, that my knowledge of the world suggests to me that hardly anything about the universe is visible. I only see what is not far too large, not far too small, and happens at a vibratory wavelength which I happen to have organs for. That’s not very much, but I can get evidence about some of everything else.
That could be, but instead of provide evidence of this, people tend to just dismiss one as a jerk if they don’t agree.
Like if you and I share a pizza. I can be fairly certain that there is a real pizza. That you are there eating it. That you feel something about eating it. But there is no way for us to know directly how it tastes to the other. Because those are internal subjective states. I would even go so far as to say that it would be both delusional to myself as well as disrespectful to you if I were to decide that I somehow knew what your internal subjective state is, because there is no real possibility of me accessing it. Maybe we both “like” it, but pizza tastes to you the way chocolate cake tastes to me.
I know that people experience emotions and impressions, and this can be quite significant, despite having no direct access to them. I think that people worry that if you don’t presume to know their emotions, that you don’t care about them, which is not fair to either party. It’s true that we can make guesses about what each other may be feeling, and it can be important to do so, but I think that it is still vital to keep in mind that they are still only guesses. People hate this being pointed out because they are emotionally invested in the idea that people have direct, unmediated emotional connection with each other. It seems more comforting than being a bunch of separate people making guesses about each other.
It is easier for autistic people to perceive this, but I think that the observation is applicable to people generally. People find comfort in seeing patterns in things, and in feeling that they aren’t alone, so the tendency is incredibly strong.
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Not exactly. Colors exist, and body language exists, nobody’s disputing that. However, body language means different things to different people, it can vary widely across cultures, and can be intentional or unintentional. Decoding body language for me requires some understanding or assumptions about the person, and even then I have to be sure that the body language is intentional and not just noise. I think understanding voices over a radio in heavy static is a pretty apt metaphor for this.
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Body language and emotion and non verbal communication exist yes. And they do mean different things to different peole and different cultures.
Theres a lot about this that feels like travelling abroad and demanding that everyone you meet speak English and calling them narrow minded when they don’t.
It just seems… wrong to me.
Also sorry I usually keep out of this thread cuz Im NT/empathic, but I do read it! Dont mind me. 
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I don’t demand that other people communicate on my terms. Most of the time I’m just glad there’s a connection at all.
I expect some degree of difficulty in reading other people’s nonverbals, and with other people reading my nonverbals. That’s fine. What is not fine is when people misinterpret my nonverbals and then refuse to believe they misinterpreted them. That’s like traveling in another country and being made fun of for having an accent.
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The difference, as I see it, is that languages besides English also have layers of grammar, syntax, and semantics. That’s what people usually mean by language. What people call “body language” has none of those layers. But that is not to say that it can’t have meaning. Lots of things which aren’t languages have meaning. But they are deeply subjective, so even though they may have a lot of meaning for everybody who experiences it, there is no way to confirm that it is the same meaning.
Consider that we could be managers watching a person on CCTV alone at work who forgets that they are being observed. And we could be asked to take notes on their nonverbal communication, posture and facial movements. Is it really accurate to say that just because their body keeps moving that this is communication by a language, even if it was completely unintentional, and there was not anybody visible for them to be “talking” to? It opens up the idea of communication to reductio ad absurdum where simply having a body and feeling something is a “message” even if there is no conscious sender or receiver.
I don’t doubt for a moment that you, I, or other can and will find meaning in what we observe each other do. But what I do doubt is whether we can verify non-verbally if they are shared meanings. I am not saying that one is somehow better than the other, more that they are very different and distinct ways of interacting, and that it seems to me that people often get them confused. Such as when people attribute the clarity of languages to vague gestures. This does not mean that I might not like those gestures.
I like that you are here.
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Well, some people suggest fortune-tellers are reasonably able to state who someone is, and what they’ve experienced in the past, though not the future.
If this is true, then nonverbal subconscious signals are one of the simpler explanations.
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I’m taking the whole thing with a grain of salt😉.
Taking the test I saw where a lot of the questions pushed me onto the ND side, which apparently I was pretty far over, but the reason behind them for me is PTSD.
P.S. Dig your new avatar, though as always the change threw me.
ETA
I could have phrased the communicator part better 
.
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Thanks! It’s still a work in progress. Discourse makes it difficult to tell how an avatar is going to look in all its permutations. 
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Yeah, I got similar skewing due to other issues. Even if I am Aspie, it’s only a part of the overall fuckery. The main benefit from this for me has been to pick up a few pointers and ways of dealing with crap that’s making things a chunk easier.
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Just since a lot of other people uploaded these, here’s mine. I am an introverted, trans, graysexual software developer who stims, and yet:
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 81 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 134 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical
I’m actually not sure that’s right, but scores on other quizzes were similar. shrug
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Gender identity and sexual orientation have very little to do with autism. They may be correlated, but this question needs more academic study.
I have met many software developers who are NT, and for good reason. There is a demand for software developers in all kinds of roles, industries, and responsibilities. There’s overlap with graphic design, management, marketing, etc. It’s no longer like back in the day when software people were math geeks who sat in a back room somewhere and didn’t talk to anybody.
Autistics can be extroverted too. I’m not, but I’ve met many who are. The term I see is "active but odd ". I find that a little pejorative, but if the shoe fits.
As for stimming, everybody stims, and I do mean everybody. Playing with hair, drumming fingers on the desk, they’re all stims. It’s just that society got together (I must have missed that memo) and decided which stims are acceptable and which are unacceptable 
So, it’s entirely possible that you are an introverted, trans, graysexual software developer who stims, and still technically not on the spectrum. The words we used to use for that would be allistic or Autistic Cousin. I’m not sure what we use today, because I’ve been away from the Autistic community for about a decade now. If you seriously think you’re on the spectrum, the Aspie Quiz isn’t exactly a binding diagnosis 
I’m an introverted, cis, graysexual* electrical/biomedical engineer who stims loudly and constantly, by the way 
*God I hate that word, but it seems like it applies to me
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Thank you, I really appreciate this! You gave me a lot to think about and even new (to me) words to look up!
It seems allistic simply means “not autistic.” I found a blog satirizing allistics which convinced me I am indeed one of those dreaded allistics who sadly make up over 98% of the population
Honestly allistic seems a lot more useful than neurotypical because there’s all sorts of people who aren’t autistic but still in no way “typical.”
I think whatever autistic cousin behaviors I have can be explained by a combination of intense ADD (stimming and hyper-focus) and a lifetime of emotional self-censorship, which means when I do talk, it’s been more likely to be the safe, impersonal, and geeky rather than the unsafe, personal, and emotional. I still often have to convince myself to lower those shields, so to speak, even with people I trust – but the ability for emotional and nonverbal connection has always been there, just sometimes fallow.
I hear you, though thinking of myself that way has helped me feel less prudish around some of my more – uh – “outgoing” friends.
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Have you considered the low-hanging branches might be out of the view of the camera lens?
For some reason, I can’t get my chart to upload - but I know I weighted low middle around the wheel, 4 to 5, except for a 9 in NT perception and a 7 in ND talent.
I’m aware that I’m extremely an extremely visual thinker. My stepmom tells me I was reading at a very early age, and I can remember many aspects of my life when I was a toddler from recalled images.
When I want to remember something abstract, I tend to visualize it as written text on the page, but if it’s something concrete, I visualize it well in three dimensions.
Probably my earliest memory is around the time my dad and stepmom got married when I was less than 2 years old (confirmed by timeline). They honeymooned in Niagra Falls, and I have clear images of walking with my maternal grandmother on a sidewalk near the falls next to a parking lot, with a guardrail next to the sidewalk to keep people from falling into the chasm.
We stayed in an apartment in upstate New York, most likely, where I had my first shower (no bathtub), and there was a five and dime down at the corner where my dad bought me one of those cheap balsa wood gliders.
I even found my old house that we hadn’t lived in since I was 3, twenty years later, based on visual recognition and feel.
I could describe most of it in great detail, but it would be longer than War and Peace.
I know I was a mental/emotional handful when I was young, with lots of meltdowns - my grandmother even drew me during one of my pity parties - I was sure that I had been unfairly wronged.
I had a great deal of difficulty relating to people, and tended to be hyper-sensitive. It took a lot of work to figure out ways to deal.
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I thought you may have been referring to the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical (ISNT). That one’s been down for years, but maybe it’s mirrored or archived somewhere
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I think this needs to happen from a number of angles – not just looking at people who do worse, but also those who do better or just differently than we might predict. Basing an assessment on an overly restrictive profile is a problem, even if people with that profile exist and are particularly in need of support.
As an analogy, many women complain that they have difficulty being heard or respected in a corporate environment, and there might be particular issues (e.g. height or voice) that could play into that. On the other hand, this is more or less of a problem in different environments without the women themselves necessarily being different, so being a woman isn’t an inherent disability and difficulties related to being respected as a woman are based on sexism, not their identity. The fact that Sam is tall and has the respect of her colleagues doesn’t mean that she’s so high functioning that she’s hardly a woman at all – if you define an identity by the difficulties you face, you are looking at indirect effects of the interaction between a particular type of person and their environment (which both influence each other). We could also forget Alice, who is in catering, not business, and has her own problems with sexism or particular needs related to shift work or dangerous working environments that Sam and other office workers don’t face as much. Then there’s Alishba, who’s a Muslim…
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…arr we twins? I remember so much from when I was very young. Prior to 3.
But I read late, and according to my Mom never cried only when hurt. I was a quiet solitary child who could play for hours quietly. And yet my chart has me super NT and empathic.
Brains! So neat!!
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I also hear Sam is a good driver and balances her own checkbook. If you didn’t tell me, I never would have guessed Sam was a woman!
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Honestly, I’m surprised she wants to label herself like that, since most colleagues who interact with her via email think that she’s a man like everyone else.
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I feel like I’m reading tuning all over again.
