Misunderstandings occur on a regular basis: typically massive ones, typically small ones. It’s a traditional a part of human communication, whether or not or not we’re autistic.
Now, I’m a giant fan of the longstanding BBC Radio rural cleaning soap The Archers (one among my autistic particular pursuits!) and a latest episode performed with a traditional form of misunderstanding. Susan Carter is busy doing her grocery buying within the native grocery store. Her long-estranged brother Clive (who doesn’t reside within the village and hasn’t been seen for years) startles her along with his surprising strategy within the vegetable aisle. “Clive!”, says Susan, “What are you doing right here?” Clive’s reply? “A bit of buying my tea.”
The issue, on this misunderstanding, is context. Susan needs to know what Clive is doing right here: again within the village. For Susan, the context is an even bigger one. It’s about Clive showing again in her life and within the village after years of being absent. Clive solutions what he’s doing right here: on this constructing, the grocery store. For him the context is far more quick. He offers a solution that pertains to the current second. Why is he right here, within the grocery store? Effectively, he’s doing his purchasing for his tea…
Relevance idea is a lesser-known idea from the sector of Linguistics (the research of languages and human communication) that has loads to say about how shared context (or, extra precisely, the issues we assume to be shared context) influences how we perceive each other. Relevance idea, to me, appears a extremely great tool for understanding the difficulties in cross-neurotype communication (e.g., between autistic and non-autistic folks).
Whereas misunderstandings occur on a regular basis, they’re far more widespread and have a way more important affect on the success of communication once they occur in cross-neurotype interactions (e.g. between autistic and non-autistic folks). Traditionally, autistic folks have been blamed for these communication breakdowns and described as not having the ability to “do” social communication, or perceive the views of different folks. We now know that, in actual fact, this isn’t true. The issue is a two-way problem: with neurotypical folks having simply as a lot issue understanding autistic folks as autistic folks have understanding neurotypical folks. This two-way downside is commonly referred to the “double empathy downside.” Relevance idea might help us perceive why the double empathy downside occurs (and, in consequence, hopefully assist us navigate it higher).
The issue is that phrases on their very own don’t actually imply a complete bunch. This may appear a little bit of a wierd concept at first. We’ve got dictionaries, the place we will lookup the meanings of phrases, proper? They have to imply one thing… However as we noticed within the instance above with Susan Carter and Clive Horrobin, you should use the phrase “right here” however it could possibly relate to any variety of various things. There’s all the time a component of guesswork concerned while you’re making an attempt to work out what any person means.
Should you’re not satisfied but, right here’s one other instance. Think about you’re sitting watching TV with a pal or member of the family. You may see them leaning ahead and frowning and also you realise they in all probability can’t hear it very properly. You see them patting the couch round them feeling for one thing, then they ask you: “have you ever received the flibbertigibbet?” Whereas ‘flibbertigibbet’ is a (albeit scrumptious to say) made-up phrase than has no that means and might’t be regarded up in a dictionary, you possibly can in all probability work out fairly shortly that they’re asking you for the remote-control (to show up the quantity).
Relevance idea tells us that with a view to appropriately guess (or: perceive) what somebody means, you want to have the ability to appropriately work out what they wished you to know (or: their ‘intentions’). You want to have the ability to think about what context is most “related” for the individual talking, and while you’re the speaker, it’s essential to have an concept of what probably the most relevance context and interpretation will likely be in your listener.
This appears like numerous arduous work, nevertheless it’s one thing that occurs intuitively and at high-speed on a regular basis with out you realising. In response to relevance idea, our brains depend on shortcuts (referred to as ‘heuristics’) that assist us establish probably the most related interpretation each time we hear or learn one thing. The heuristic (or mind shortcut) goes one thing like this:
Probably the most related interpretation is the one which prices the least psychological vitality to course of, whereas speaking probably the most new info.
Everytime you hear or learn one thing, your thoughts will run by means of the varied doable interpretations, stopping on the first one which fulfills the recipe above.
Generally, this calculation works very well and permits us to speak at velocity, appropriately understanding what folks imply, sentence after sentence, after sentence, after sentence… But it surely depends on us (roughly) appropriately gauging how a lot psychological vitality it’ll take the opposite individual to course of what we’ve stated, and this depends on us realizing what now we have in widespread (and due to this fact what is apparent to the opposite individual and straightforward for them to course of).
The extra related two persons are, the extra probably it’s that our minds will likely be organised in similar-ish methods and that we’ll have similar-ish methods of understanding issues. Relevance idea describes this by way of us having bigger ‘mutual cognitive environments’ (or, in different phrases, there’s extra overlap in the way in which our minds work). The heuristic/shortcut described above does its calculation of relevance based mostly on how a lot we assume we each know that now we have in widespread (or, how a lot we expect we each know is in our mutual cognitive atmosphere).
And herein lies the issue: Autistic and non-autistic folks have very alternative ways of processing info. They typically have very alternative ways of pondering, very completely different sensory experiences that form the way in which they see the world and, in consequence, probably have very completely different ‘cognitive environments’. Issues which may be very apparent for an autistic individual might not be apparent for a non-autistic individual, and vice versa.
The excellent news is that (after all!) autistic and non-autistic folks can perceive one another, it simply may take a bit extra effort to get there.
