Autism is Literally Not Self-Centered

fMRI scans show striking differences between people with autism and neurotypicals.

Most notably, neurotypicals' "thoughts of social interaction clearly included activation indicating a representation of the "self," manifested in the brain's posterior midline regions. However, the self-related activation was near absent in the autism group." That is to say, the autistics did not put themselves into the given scenario. Say "hug" to a neurotypical, and they will imagine themselves getting a hug from or hugging someone; say "hug" to an autistic, and they will think of the dictionary definition of the word or envision others hugging.

This actually goes along with much of what I have written about on this blog about people on the spectrum being more external-focused. We think more about objects and ideas rather than people, because we don't think that much about ourselves. This also makes sense of the fact that solipsists are the mental opposites of autistics; solipsists cannot differentiate the world from themselves, while autistics radically differentiate the world from themselves. At its most extreme, the latter is outright debilitating. At the same time, solipsism at its most extreme is sociopathic.

Thus, while many people accuse those on the high functioning end of the spectrum of being self-absorbed, we can see from this research that the opposite is literally true. We don't think of ourselves at all. Or rarely. But because we don't think of ourselves, we don't think that much about others, either -- at least, to the degree that one has to think of oneself to think of and about others.

Why this pattern of thinking comes about is what we need to try to understand.