The part about hyperparameters being ‘tuned’ to sensory input, and how that interacts hyperplasticity, is very interesting to me. To pull that thread, I think that there’s a mechanism of attention that may be important to include, based on my own experience. The theory of monotropism accounts for this, might be worth looking into?
I am autistic and hypersensitive. It has always struck people as odd that I can manage social situations quite easily as long as I calm my nervous system with additional input (body-focused repetitive behavior aka stimming). But it’s not that strange—Neurotypical people stim too, chewing a pencil, pacing while deep in thought is common. Many autistic people need to move, pull, push, twirl, hum, sing, just to stay at baseline. Otherwise the world is just too much.
If autism is only hypersensitivity then this doesn’t make sense, more input would be worse, right? I think the mechanism might be something like ‘balancing’ the sensory input and output, but I would love to find a more elegant explanation for why it ‘cancels out’. I’m throwing out there that may be a unique adaptation in the hyperparameters, or whatever attention system responsible for processing inputs, to explain why stimming is so effective? I will have to think on it more.
‘Heavy work’ is another example. It’s amazing for children and adults with autism, as a child my parents found I would be abnormally calm after pushing around heavy objects (I got a tire as a present once haha). There is something about deep pressure and vestibular input that is healing, though the effects only last up to a few days. Swinging in a hammock, weighted blankets, scuba diving, weightlifting/calisthenics, rock climbing, hiking, are all activities that autistic people I meet seem to gravitate to independently and use to regulate.
The part about hyperparameters being ‘tuned’ to sensory input, and how that interacts hyperplasticity, is very interesting to me. To pull that thread, I think that there’s a mechanism of attention that may be important to include, based on my own experience. The theory of monotropism accounts for this, might be worth looking into?
I am autistic and hypersensitive. It has always struck people as odd that I can manage social situations quite easily as long as I calm my nervous system with additional input (body-focused repetitive behavior aka stimming). But it’s not that strange—Neurotypical people stim too, chewing a pencil, pacing while deep in thought is common. Many autistic people need to move, pull, push, twirl, hum, sing, just to stay at baseline. Otherwise the world is just too much.
If autism is only hypersensitivity then this doesn’t make sense, more input would be worse, right? I think the mechanism might be something like ‘balancing’ the sensory input and output, but I would love to find a more elegant explanation for why it ‘cancels out’. I’m throwing out there that may be a unique adaptation in the hyperparameters, or whatever attention system responsible for processing inputs, to explain why stimming is so effective? I will have to think on it more.
‘Heavy work’ is another example. It’s amazing for children and adults with autism, as a child my parents found I would be abnormally calm after pushing around heavy objects (I got a tire as a present once haha). There is something about deep pressure and vestibular input that is healing, though the effects only last up to a few days. Swinging in a hammock, weighted blankets, scuba diving, weightlifting/calisthenics, rock climbing, hiking, are all activities that autistic people I meet seem to gravitate to independently and use to regulate.