Actually, it’s probably true if you don’t confound for intelligence.
Autism is negatively correlated with intelligence, and if you’re not very smart, everything gets harder. But I think it’s wrong to see low intelligence as part of Autism. And even if you disagree, it’s weird to classify a general intelligence problem as a specific social deficit problem.
But if you compare high functioning Autists with neurotypicals, in realistic enough settings, I’m convinced autists will be better at understanding autists than neurotypicals are at understanding autists. Although “realistic enough” might require the autists enough time to interact to spot each other as same type of person.
I don’t put a lot of weight here on academic studies, over just all of my life experience. But in case you do: I did here of a study where autist worked better with other autists than neurotypicals with neurotypicals. I don’t have the liks, sorry. Just my memory of someone I trust telling me about it.
The reason I don’t trust academic studies on this topic, is that is really really hard to do them well, so most of them are not done well.
My description is based on extensive observation and to a lesser extent personal experience, and was not intended to focus on those with low intelligence; while it’s difficult to assess intelligence over the internet, I haven’t especially noticed a correlation between high intelligence and increased social skill.
To bring in some concrete examples of places autists fail to impress (this list is far from complete, but hopefully at least gestures in an informative direction):
Things allists are generally better at:
-correctly inferring my mood from nonverbal cues
-executing the social graces which make me feel safe and welcome; not defecting by accident (note, ironically enough, that—while I’m sure his algorithm does play better with normies—the author of that post also demonstrated himself in the comments to be terrible at picking a tone which wouldn’t insult lesswrongers; this IMO ties into a common autistic tendency to have difficulty with code-switching and with real-time adjustment to social feedback)
-understanding the gist of what I said when I didn’t use precisely the words they consider correct; understanding what I say when I happen to use imprecise words because my desired level of abstraction does not contain more precision
-sending positive phatic signals in the event they happen to like me (and, note, IRL I don’t generally look at people when they’re talking to me at all; if I did, I expect the difference would be far more pronounced due to allists’ generally higher inclination to express emotion in their faces and bodies)
-both groups have a deeply unpleasant tendency to demand one spell oneself out to them in excruciating detail, but autists generally require a higher level of detail and have a lower threshold of confusion
Things they’re about equal at:
-allists are likelier to impute an emotional tone to their interlocutors’ words which wasn’t there whilst autists are likelier to impute spurious implications, but both groups routinely fall into both failure modes
-both groups also have a strong tendency to dig their heels in if it’s suggested they might’ve misunderstood something, arguing that their interlocutor obviously meant X and was using words wrong or is lying about their intent (autists are likelier to use the former excuse whilst the latter is more often heard from allists, but again, both groups commit both errors)
-autists have a tendency to assume that which they can’t immediately see the point of is objectively irrelevant or useless, rather than their having failed to understand something; allistic self-centeredness and overconfidence does produce similar results in many cases, but doesn’t usually manifest in this precise fashion
-both groups also tend to assume that if they’re confused it’s because their interlocutor is talking nonsense, rather than because they’ve failed to parse their interlocutors’ words correctly and/or gather necessary context
-allists aren’t discernibly worse at reading all the words I said and assuming I chose them deliberately, although this is more because autists are surprisingly bad at it than because allists are any good at it
Actually, it’s probably true if you don’t confound for intelligence.
Autism is negatively correlated with intelligence, and if you’re not very smart, everything gets harder. But I think it’s wrong to see low intelligence as part of Autism. And even if you disagree, it’s weird to classify a general intelligence problem as a specific social deficit problem.
But if you compare high functioning Autists with neurotypicals, in realistic enough settings, I’m convinced autists will be better at understanding autists than neurotypicals are at understanding autists. Although “realistic enough” might require the autists enough time to interact to spot each other as same type of person.
I don’t put a lot of weight here on academic studies, over just all of my life experience. But in case you do: I did here of a study where autist worked better with other autists than neurotypicals with neurotypicals. I don’t have the liks, sorry. Just my memory of someone I trust telling me about it.
The reason I don’t trust academic studies on this topic, is that is really really hard to do them well, so most of them are not done well.
My description is based on extensive observation and to a lesser extent personal experience, and was not intended to focus on those with low intelligence; while it’s difficult to assess intelligence over the internet, I haven’t especially noticed a correlation between high intelligence and increased social skill.
To bring in some concrete examples of places autists fail to impress (this list is far from complete, but hopefully at least gestures in an informative direction):
Things allists are generally better at:
-correctly inferring my mood from nonverbal cues
-executing the social graces which make me feel safe and welcome; not defecting by accident (note, ironically enough, that—while I’m sure his algorithm does play better with normies—the author of that post also demonstrated himself in the comments to be terrible at picking a tone which wouldn’t insult lesswrongers; this IMO ties into a common autistic tendency to have difficulty with code-switching and with real-time adjustment to social feedback)
-understanding the gist of what I said when I didn’t use precisely the words they consider correct; understanding what I say when I happen to use imprecise words because my desired level of abstraction does not contain more precision
-sending positive phatic signals in the event they happen to like me (and, note, IRL I don’t generally look at people when they’re talking to me at all; if I did, I expect the difference would be far more pronounced due to allists’ generally higher inclination to express emotion in their faces and bodies)
-both groups have a deeply unpleasant tendency to demand one spell oneself out to them in excruciating detail, but autists generally require a higher level of detail and have a lower threshold of confusion
Things they’re about equal at:
-allists are likelier to impute an emotional tone to their interlocutors’ words which wasn’t there whilst autists are likelier to impute spurious implications, but both groups routinely fall into both failure modes
-both groups also have a strong tendency to dig their heels in if it’s suggested they might’ve misunderstood something, arguing that their interlocutor obviously meant X and was using words wrong or is lying about their intent (autists are likelier to use the former excuse whilst the latter is more often heard from allists, but again, both groups commit both errors)
-autists have a tendency to assume that which they can’t immediately see the point of is objectively irrelevant or useless, rather than their having failed to understand something; allistic self-centeredness and overconfidence does produce similar results in many cases, but doesn’t usually manifest in this precise fashion
-both groups also tend to assume that if they’re confused it’s because their interlocutor is talking nonsense, rather than because they’ve failed to parse their interlocutors’ words correctly and/or gather necessary context
-allists aren’t discernibly worse at reading all the words I said and assuming I chose them deliberately, although this is more because autists are surprisingly bad at it than because allists are any good at it