Autism & Eye Contact
Jun. 26th, 2023 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraCross-posted to ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thatautisticadhdfeel & cora
I fell into a bit of a TikTok rabbit hole last night (maybe the night before last? Time - what is it?) about how autistic people see faces vs. how allistic people see faces. I thought I would info dump here about it and see if I can help revive this community a bit (the last post was from 2018).
KC Davis has a great series on this on her TikTok (link). A few of the take aways:
A friend sent me an article about this phenomenon today which validates everything KC Davis has been talking about on her TikTok:
As an AuHD, I have noticed I tend to look *everywhere* else in the room when I am talking with someone in meet space. As a kid, I used to do drawing/doodling/knitting that I would look at instead, but as an adult such stimming while someone talks isn't socially acceptable, so I'm literally drawn to looking at *everything* else around the room to avoid face contact.
On video meetings, I tend to get myself to look at the computer screen (always a different window than the conference, though). I have Cookie Clicker in a tab to get me through the meeting. I don't really like looking at people while they're on camera. It feels far more intimate than making face contact in meet space - not only do I see the person, but I also see their background. I can easily tell who priorities house aesthetics vs. who does not (which inherently comes with an implicit bias about socio-economic backgrounds with those realizations which can then lead to a bias for or against someone).
I'm not sure how to end this, so I'll just end with a random, *completely unrelated* fact: Neurodivergents tend to bond through infodumping. This is why we're not so great at small talk, and the small talk we *are* good at is random facts. Because it's just micro infodumping.
thatautisticadhdfeel & coraI fell into a bit of a TikTok rabbit hole last night (maybe the night before last? Time - what is it?) about how autistic people see faces vs. how allistic people see faces. I thought I would info dump here about it and see if I can help revive this community a bit (the last post was from 2018).
KC Davis has a great series on this on her TikTok (link). A few of the take aways:
- Autistic people think "eye contact" is literal - it's not. Staring directly into someone's eyeballs like you are trying to stare into their soul is just as overwhelming for allistics as it is for us.
- Allistic people are able to take in the entire face of someone; autistic people tend to take in bits & pieces
- Autistics tend to look away from someone's face because looking at someone's face is distracting. ADHDers will look away from someone's face because everything outside of that person's face is distracting.
A friend sent me an article about this phenomenon today which validates everything KC Davis has been talking about on her TikTok:
The findings indicate “that the basis of eye contact avoidance in autism is the result of an abnormal sensitivity of the threat processing system,” Hadjikhani said. “From early on after birth, the subcortical face processing system is too sensitive to basic face configuration and gets over-connected. Since this system over time gets involved in gaze perception, this is experienced as a stressful thing.-- MSN PsyPost
As an AuHD, I have noticed I tend to look *everywhere* else in the room when I am talking with someone in meet space. As a kid, I used to do drawing/doodling/knitting that I would look at instead, but as an adult such stimming while someone talks isn't socially acceptable, so I'm literally drawn to looking at *everything* else around the room to avoid face contact.
On video meetings, I tend to get myself to look at the computer screen (always a different window than the conference, though). I have Cookie Clicker in a tab to get me through the meeting. I don't really like looking at people while they're on camera. It feels far more intimate than making face contact in meet space - not only do I see the person, but I also see their background. I can easily tell who priorities house aesthetics vs. who does not (which inherently comes with an implicit bias about socio-economic backgrounds with those realizations which can then lead to a bias for or against someone).
I'm not sure how to end this, so I'll just end with a random, *completely unrelated* fact: Neurodivergents tend to bond through infodumping. This is why we're not so great at small talk, and the small talk we *are* good at is random facts. Because it's just micro infodumping.
