I understand that they get them but what happens exactly to them?
In: Biology
I see you’ve gotten a bunch of good answers already, but I want to provide one that is based on some currently popular theories in brain science.
You can think of the brain as a sort of scientist. When our sensory system is stimulated, we have to figure what is most likely to have caused it. So the incoming sensory stream is data, while the brain generates hypotheses based on what it already knows. When there’s a mismatch between hypothesis and data, we get error signals–surprisal. Surprisal is very important. We improve our understanding of the world one surprise at the time.
Now, it’s often better to have “fuzzy” hypotheses than rock-solid ones. Not all dogs look exactly alike, so it would be a pain to be constantly surprised by every new dog. We can call this fuzziness precision, because that’s what it is. You can compare it to throwing darts. It’s going to be really frustrating if you only count bulls eye’s as hits. If you demand that of yourself, things are going to be tough. It’s better to have a fuzzier precision (at least in the beginning), like hitting the board.
In autism, the precision of hypotheses is generally really high. Meaning that they’re constantly getting bombarded with error signals. What’s worse is that neurotypical people use ambiguous (imprecise) language very often. This will be very confusing to someone with a high precision.
Professions requiring high precision, like science, programming, mathematics, and engineering, are often very attractive to people on the spectrum.
Sensory overload can be interpreted as an overabundance of error signals. Stimming (self-stimulation) is a coping strategy that is probably effective because it sends a bunch of self-generated precise signals into the incoming sensory streaming, drowning out the noise.
This also explains why people with autism tend to have problems coping with changes in habits and plans. The ambiguity doesn’t feel good.
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