This seems an internal feedback mechanism, diminished or absent in autism.

So without the feedback mechanism, we use (or attempt to use) external ones instead, and our very attempts to do so are misinterpreted - read as signs or symbols or something other than simply as attempts to understand. All the assumption/expectation issues that can arise in any communication show up here, where the clarifying mechanisms for communication problems are themselves usually social.

Elsewhere in this list of “points to ponder”, I wrote of the difficulty in assigning probabilities to different outcomes, and the difficulty in believing the probabilities others encourage us to consider. Here, as elsewhere, the pruning of unlikely reactions doesn’t seem to occur, so my initial thought of absence of feedback may instead be too much feedback. In a sound-reinforcement setting, feedback can be managed by manipulating the controls, but where is the “gain control” in our imaginations?

Last revised: June 22, 2007
(c)2007 Dave Spicer
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