I’ve read quite a bit of (non-technical) writing about autism—partly because I thought I fit some of the superficial criteria. But I came to the conclusion that the popular narrative is a bit silly.
Autism is a sensory processing thing. I’ve never heard of an autistic person without some non-standard sensory stuff. A lot of us may be better at logical thinking than socializing, for various reasons (including habit and preference!) but we mostly deal with sensory stimuli in a perfectly conventional way. I don’t get overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of a supermarket. I don’t have a visual imagination. I don’t find particular textures/tastes/sounds intolerable. I don’t get any special zing from stimulation (pen clicking, reflective objects, etc.) These are pretty typical self-described traits of actual autistics, from what I’ve read from blogs and memoirs. And I don’t have a single one of them. Sure, I’m a (mild) introvert, and I’m interested in academic and technical subjects, but I suspect that has absolutely nothing to do with autism.
The empathizing/systematizing brain-types stuff is really odd to me. Empathy and social skills are on one side; detail-oriented thinking and technical or abstract interests are on the other. Why should those things necessarily be on a linear spectrum? What about gregarious tech wizards? What about empathetic but socially awkward people? I don’t know on what basis you project all these traits onto one dimension. Add in Baron-Cohen’s shaky speculations about gender and you get something that just doesn’t seem to hold up.
You may wish to think of the strongest arguments in favor of Baron-Cohen’s idea. Have you tried answering your own criticisms (What about gregarious tech wizards?) the way you would predict that someone who supported the empathizing/systematizing hypothesis would?
Why should those things necessarily be on a linear spectrum?
Try to predict how Baron-Cohen would answer that one.
Add in Baron-Cohen’s shaky speculations about gender and you get something that just doesn’t seem to hold up.
What makes Baron-Cohen’s ideas about AS and gender shaky, other than the fact that they’re about gender? If you are using lack-of-political-correctness as a form of evidence against the idea, you should probably make that argument explicitly, so that it can be critiqued or supported openly, rather than relying on an implied-but-not-explicit implication that speculations about gender weaken the argument.
Okay, let me backtrack. When I wrote that, I’d read popularizations not research papers. I knew there was something wrong with the popularizations. Now, looking over the research, I still think there’s something missing.
Best case scenario for Baron-Cohen: he’s found correlations between all the relevant traits on his “autism spectrum” as well as autistic traits that I haven’t seen mentioned in his work. And there are no major traits common to diagnosed autistics that don’t fall onto this spectrum for the general population.
About gender: I wasn’t thinking about PC, I was really thinking about it not making sense. What I know: there are more male than female diagnosed autistics. Men perform consistently better than women on spatial reasoning tests. Men are, of course, more common than women in technical professions. What’s in question is the additional claim that these phenomena are all part of the same thing, a spectrum from empathizing to systematizing types of brains. That’s an additional claim, and a bold one.
Keep in mind that it’s not enough to claim that autistics tend to be more systematizing and non-autistics tend to be less systematizing. (He does have evidence to show this.) To make the kinds of claims he does in the media, he’d have to show that this is the main difference, that the systematizing/empathizing axis explains most of the variation between autistics and non-autistics.
Now I have looked at his website and papers and the papers and summaries I glanced at don’t seem to indicate that he’s done the work of correlating and comparing the different traits labeled as “empathizing” and “systematizing” to see if his scale is a valid concept. His main justification for using it is that the “systematizing” cluster is a list of traits found to be more common in males than females. But he doesn’t cite high correlations between the systematizing or the empathizing traits. And, while systematizing and empathizing are inversely correlated, the correlation is weak (r = 0.16.) (http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/research/project.asp?id=2)
I don’t know if this is standard practice for psychologists but, at least with the survey-based studies, I think the papers confirm that he doesn’t realize how much more he’d need to do to confirm his claims.
The second one:
207
S. Baron-Cohen, J. Richler, D. Bisarya, N. Gurunathan and S. Wheelwright, (2003)
The Systemising Quotient (SQ): An investigation of adults with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism and normal sex differences
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, Special issue on “Autism: Mind and Brain” 358:361-374
I’ve read quite a bit of (non-technical) writing about autism—partly because I thought I fit some of the superficial criteria. But I came to the conclusion that the popular narrative is a bit silly.
Autism is a sensory processing thing. I’ve never heard of an autistic person without some non-standard sensory stuff. A lot of us may be better at logical thinking than socializing, for various reasons (including habit and preference!) but we mostly deal with sensory stimuli in a perfectly conventional way. I don’t get overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of a supermarket. I don’t have a visual imagination. I don’t find particular textures/tastes/sounds intolerable. I don’t get any special zing from stimulation (pen clicking, reflective objects, etc.) These are pretty typical self-described traits of actual autistics, from what I’ve read from blogs and memoirs. And I don’t have a single one of them. Sure, I’m a (mild) introvert, and I’m interested in academic and technical subjects, but I suspect that has absolutely nothing to do with autism.
The empathizing/systematizing brain-types stuff is really odd to me. Empathy and social skills are on one side; detail-oriented thinking and technical or abstract interests are on the other. Why should those things necessarily be on a linear spectrum? What about gregarious tech wizards? What about empathetic but socially awkward people? I don’t know on what basis you project all these traits onto one dimension. Add in Baron-Cohen’s shaky speculations about gender and you get something that just doesn’t seem to hold up.
You may wish to think of the strongest arguments in favor of Baron-Cohen’s idea. Have you tried answering your own criticisms (What about gregarious tech wizards?) the way you would predict that someone who supported the empathizing/systematizing hypothesis would?
Try to predict how Baron-Cohen would answer that one.
What makes Baron-Cohen’s ideas about AS and gender shaky, other than the fact that they’re about gender? If you are using lack-of-political-correctness as a form of evidence against the idea, you should probably make that argument explicitly, so that it can be critiqued or supported openly, rather than relying on an implied-but-not-explicit implication that speculations about gender weaken the argument.
Okay, let me backtrack. When I wrote that, I’d read popularizations not research papers. I knew there was something wrong with the popularizations. Now, looking over the research, I still think there’s something missing.
Best case scenario for Baron-Cohen: he’s found correlations between all the relevant traits on his “autism spectrum” as well as autistic traits that I haven’t seen mentioned in his work. And there are no major traits common to diagnosed autistics that don’t fall onto this spectrum for the general population.
About gender: I wasn’t thinking about PC, I was really thinking about it not making sense. What I know: there are more male than female diagnosed autistics. Men perform consistently better than women on spatial reasoning tests. Men are, of course, more common than women in technical professions. What’s in question is the additional claim that these phenomena are all part of the same thing, a spectrum from empathizing to systematizing types of brains. That’s an additional claim, and a bold one.
Keep in mind that it’s not enough to claim that autistics tend to be more systematizing and non-autistics tend to be less systematizing. (He does have evidence to show this.) To make the kinds of claims he does in the media, he’d have to show that this is the main difference, that the systematizing/empathizing axis explains most of the variation between autistics and non-autistics.
Now I have looked at his website and papers and the papers and summaries I glanced at don’t seem to indicate that he’s done the work of correlating and comparing the different traits labeled as “empathizing” and “systematizing” to see if his scale is a valid concept. His main justification for using it is that the “systematizing” cluster is a list of traits found to be more common in males than females. But he doesn’t cite high correlations between the systematizing or the empathizing traits. And, while systematizing and empathizing are inversely correlated, the correlation is weak (r = 0.16.)
(http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/research/project.asp?id=2)
I don’t know if this is standard practice for psychologists but, at least with the survey-based studies, I think the papers confirm that he doesn’t realize how much more he’d need to do to confirm his claims.
Sorry, I can’t find “0.16” on the page you link, and it isn’t obvious which paper that piece of data is in?
The second one: 207 S. Baron-Cohen, J. Richler, D. Bisarya, N. Gurunathan and S. Wheelwright, (2003) The Systemising Quotient (SQ): An investigation of adults with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism and normal sex differences Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, Special issue on “Autism: Mind and Brain” 358:361-374
Oh yes, I just found it. The data from the table are interesting:
Males with AS :: SQ = 36 +- 15 :: EQ = 19 +- 10
Controls :: SQ = 30 +- 10 :: EQ = 42 +- 14
So yes, there’s definitely something there.
I must admit, I am surprised that the correlation is as small in magnitude as 0.16.
Also, I’m a 22 on the scale. I’m not a utilitarian or a strict deontologist.