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Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

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Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#41

Post by wafflemaker »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #34
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it hard to believe that you can get actually get good data from self-reporting in surveys. Especially when you consider the Lizardman's Constant of 4% https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and... This article was written in 2013. The Internet has become a significantly more toxic place since then, and I would imagine the constant is closer to 15-20% these days.

> […] I would imagine the constant is closer to 15-20% these days. On what basis?

On basis of spending a lot of my teenage time browsing 4chan, I'd say it's not 15%, but closer to 69% or even whole 420%. You just loose faith in humanity from spending too much time on the internet.

Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#42

Post by drivingmenuts »

"Normal people" do it, too - ask a sailor about ship. Some people name and gender their vehicles. To a certain extent, it comes from close association with object.

I'm the guy who drives around with a cartoon drawing of a robot in his car that will utterly destroy anyone who tries to steal it, so I ought to know.

Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#43

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

soulofmischief wrote: post #26
sctb wrote: post #8

I don't have access to the full text, but based on the abstract I think it's likely that I relate to this phenomenon (I am autistic). My experience is not so much the attribution of human characteristics to non-human objects, but I understand why this might be the only accessible language of expression. For me, if a useful object is damaged or otherwise loses its usefulness through neglect or malice, I experience som…

I like the Japanese concept of Tsukumogami[0], where certain objects that live to be 100 years old become imbued with a soul. It's easy to get sentimental over neglected things because I seem to have an innate appreciation and sense of duty toward objects that are designed to help people. It only seems fair that the contract includes care and maintenance from the user. I live in an aging neighborhood and weep for som…

> I like the Japanese concept of Tsukumogami[0], where certain objects that live to be 100 years old become imbued with a soul.

I feel like cars tend to do it much, much sooner, given how short their life is. :-)

My personal and private belief is that once I have owned an item for a while, I give it a portion of my own soul. The "personality" doesn't have to match mine, or have any desirable traits, but it is there, it is because I am, and I'm shaping the thing by my own usage patterns.

Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#45

Post by astrobe_ »

soulofmischief wrote: post #26
sctb wrote: post #8

I don't have access to the full text, but based on the abstract I think it's likely that I relate to this phenomenon (I am autistic). My experience is not so much the attribution of human characteristics to non-human objects, but I understand why this might be the only accessible language of expression. For me, if a useful object is damaged or otherwise loses its usefulness through neglect or malice, I experience som…

I like the Japanese concept of Tsukumogami[0], where certain objects that live to be 100 years old become imbued with a soul. It's easy to get sentimental over neglected things because I seem to have an innate appreciation and sense of duty toward objects that are designed to help people. It only seems fair that the contract includes care and maintenance from the user. I live in an aging neighborhood and weep for som…

Yes, Tsukumogami is I believe an instance of animism [1].

AFAIK I am not affected by autism, but I distinctly remember when as a child I refused to eat something because that thing didn't "want" to be eaten. I guess that from my parent's perspective, it was just their child's whim-of-the-day.

But that memory makes me think that animism is something natural - perhaps some sort "bug" in the system that make us attribute intentions [2] to others.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind_in_animals#Attr...

Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#46

Post by seabird »

earnestinger wrote: post #33
shayway wrote: post #20

This is neither here nor there, but it's interesting that the only personification made more often by non-autistic people is gender. Demographics may explain this but I wonder if there are more broad differences in how autistic people view identity.

Lot of languages assign gender to objects. One should control for foreign language knowledge.

A lot of languages assign nouns to a noun class. They are (usually) not ascribing a biological gender to an object. "Gender" is a horrendously bad name for the concept.

Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#47

Post by energywut »

qoez wrote: post #6

I always had the impression it was the other way around, non autistic 'normal' people personifies non human objects. Anyway I always had a pet theory that the reason some people are fooled into thinking LLM text output is a real human with feelings, and some aren't, comes down to this difference in brains. (Personally I never feel like the LLM is a real human and I'm kind of autistic too.)

Some scientists believe that autistic people have different levels of empathy than allistic people. Sometimes this manifests as higher levels of empathy for objects and animals, or higher emotional empathy.

I'm dx'd autistic, and I am someone who will weep openly or experience unbridled joy alongside, say, a movie about a bunch of animals surviving tough times. But if I see an adult human make a poor choice and suffer consequences I feel nothing. I have to teach myself that my values are that we should care for everyone -- even the people I feel no intrinsic empathy towards.

In speaking with my doc about it, it's apparently not at all uncommon for autistic folks to have this sort of extremely strong empathy response in some cases, while a totally flat empathy response in others.

Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#48

Post by AlecSchueler »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #34
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it hard to believe that you can get actually get good data from self-reporting in surveys. Especially when you consider the Lizardman's Constant of 4% https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and... This article was written in 2013. The Internet has become a significantly more toxic place since then, and I would imagine the constant is closer to 15-20% these days.

> […] I would imagine the constant is closer to 15-20% these days. On what basis?

Don't you know this is HN? A hand wave here is worth more than any methodical research.

Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#49

Post by AlecSchueler »

wafflemaker wrote: post #41
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> […] I would imagine the constant is closer to 15-20% these days. On what basis?

On basis of spending a lot of my teenage time browsing 4chan, I'd say it's not 15%, but closer to 69% or even whole 420%. You just loose faith in humanity from spending too much time on the internet.

So we're writing off the methodologies of the entire field of psychology on the basis of numbers pulled out of your--on the basis of your gut feeling?

Re: Object personification in autism: This paper will be sad if you don't read (2018)

#50

Post by energywut »

seabird wrote: post #46
earnestinger wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lot of languages assign gender to objects. One should control for foreign language knowledge.

A lot of languages assign nouns to a noun class. They are (usually) not ascribing a biological gender to an object. "Gender" is a horrendously bad name for the concept.

It's not the worst name for the concept when you include "a male" and "a female" as prominent nouns in that noun class. If you adjust your language depending on whether you are addressing a man or a woman (or speaking about a man or woman), then it's definitely also social gender (as well as grammatical gender), even if those two concepts are separate.
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