Vision – Hearing / Sensory Cross Talk

 Making Sense of the World, Several Senses at a Time; Scientific American

full article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/multisensory-perception/ Hmm.. the article contains some mystifying and annoying videos, (and annoying NTs.) The last one literally made me ill. 

Sensory cross talk helps us navigate the world

By Lena Groeger | February 28, 2012

Seeing What You Hear:

“We can usually differentiate the sights we see and the sounds we hear. But in some cases, the two can be intertwined. During speech perception, our brain integrates information from our ears with that from our eyes. Because this integration happens early in the perceptual process, visual cues influence what we think we are hearing. That is, what we see can actually shape what we hear.” 

This passage from the article sparked a possible clue as to why Asperger individuals  will look briefly at a person’s face, but then look away during conversation, an act that is criticized as a “social crime.”

I can’t claim that all Asperger people are visual thinkers, but many are: What if we avoid looking at faces because our dominant visual sense makes it difficult to hear people correctly? I have often described my conversational behavior as a quick look at a person’s face – body shape in order to “size them up” quickly, but then to look away and listen to what they say. I’m more capable of nuanced listening when not distracted by dominant visual information: “looking” directly is simply too much distraction. Overwhelming, really. I may be seeing / thinking (instead of hearing), Why does this woman draw an artificial lip contour with bright red lipstick? It’s so obviously at odds with her skin tone and face structure. Why does this guy squint with one eye? Is it an injury or a habit; is the sunlight too bright? Ah yes; he’s putting on sunglasses; now I can’t see his eyes. Is that better? I like the frames; kind of 1930-ish. Uh, oh. He’s just asked me a question; what was it? Pause. I have no idea…

I’ve frequently noticed that neurotypicals hear what they want to hear; a person will state some fact or opinion that is straightforward and difficult to misinterpret, but the neurotypical listener will immediately distort the message and attack the speaker. It seems to be a treasured neurotypical type of conflict.