A comment left on one of my posts a few weeks back got me wondering about the connection between visual thinking and empathic response. About the idiom “It’s raining cats and dogs,” Lauren wrote:
I literally see cats and dogs (the animals) falling from the sky along with raindrops. I still ultimately understand that it means very heavy rain, even though that’s not exactly what I see in my mind’s eye.
However, when I was a child, perhaps the first time I head the phrase, I felt very sorry for the poor cats and dogs. I mean, it would hurt to fall from the sky like rain and hit the ground! I would hear the cats and dogs mewling or barking in distress, inside my head. Until someone actually explained what they meant by the phrase, I found it very upsetting because I thought animals were getting hurt. (I’ve heard other people have similar reactions to the phrase “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”)
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing that certain idioms evoke a strong visual and emotional response in me as well:
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
You’ll kill two birds with one stone.
Don’t lose your head.
It’s no skin off my nose.
Can you lend me a hand?
You’re stirring up a hornet’s nest!
I know that each of these sentences is idiomatic, and I always have. And yet, I feel varying amounts of physical pain and emotional upset when I see the visuals appear in my mind — probably because the literal meaning of each one implies some form of pain to the body of a living creature.
So, it got me to wondering whether, contrary to popular opinion, the tendency of autistic people to see things visually might engender an intensified empathic response. Like Lauren, who talks about feeling upset at the vivid image in her mind of dogs and cats crying out and getting hurt, I wonder whether other autistics feel that same kind of upset by words that describe pain, or by images that show suffering.
The visual image can evoke very intense feelings, it seems. The idea that thinking visually means that we somehow objectify the world around us and detach ourselves from it seems altogether wrong-headed to me. If your way of thinking is primary visual, wouldn’t the visual images have more emotional power, rather than less?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this question.
© 2011 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
I’m not really a visual thinker, I think with some images and many words and sounds, like a book with few pictures, I don’t need to translate things into image, like when I read the news or a book, I feel the emotion easily, more than with images.
Books have more emotion than movies for me, words are better, words mean a lot, the emotional power comes from them, even in idiomatic sentences.
Maybe that is why I don’t curse or say any profanity in my language and only rarely in written English were their meaning for me is more associate with a insult than with their original meaning, and in this case only mild insults.
Those kind of idiomatic expressions hurt me, I didn’t understand why I was the only one to feel bad about this type of thing, reading this I see I am not.
This have emotional power for me and it doesn’t involves images in general. I can see cats and dogs getting hurt if I think about it like that, but the automatic response to that sentence for me is the words and what they imply, and there is an empathic response.
But when I talk about empathy, I have too much, I get sad if plants get hurt. My parents say I am too sensitive.
Hi Alicia, for the most part, I experience words as you do — I don’t see the visual images so much as the text and the feeling it represents. So I was surprised, the more I thought about my experience of idioms, to see that I actually do get some powerful visual images.
Hi Rachel,
I think you could be right about this. I certainly find that some of the images produced in response to figurative descriptions of people’s state of mind can be both appropriate and affective.
While some phrases can be too purely idiomatic and miss the mark when interpreted literally (such as “thrilled to bits”, “chip on ones shoulder” or “carry a torch”), others amplify my understanding of the other person’s feelings.
A couple of examples should serve to illustrate this. If someone says to me that they are “at the end of their rope” I get a picture of them dangling over an abyss, clinging desperately to the last few inches of a rope that is the only thing staying them from plunging into the depths.
Similarly, when I hear that a person is “cut up” or “cut to the quick” I picture them slashed or stabbed – gruesome certainly but very effective at communicating the paint they are feeling.
Another thought-provoking subject. Thanks,
-Ben.
Hi Ben, I have the same types of responses to the idioms you mention. It’s a very quick visualization, but a powerful one. It’s rather the way that I read books with pictures — the pictures can be interesting, beautiful, humorous, or disturbing, but it’s the words that really have the impact (except for photographs of war or other atrocities, which go far beyond language in their effect).
I tend to respond to words and pictures separately. When I’d read picture books to my daughter, for instance, I’d admire the art, but I’d be much more interested in getting back to the story. If I wanted to really look at the art as art, I’d consciously look through the book without looking at the words at all.
I don’t know about painful images, but I suspect something like this explains why Aspies (well, me) tend to laugh at odd times, when no one else is laughing. Some comment will make me smile or laugh, because I have a brief mental picture of something silly. I remember my boss talking about people “going overboard”, and I could only snort at the mental image that immediately popped into my head. Maybe it is because I did fall into a swimming pool once fully clothed when I was 9 …
“Throwing the baby out with the bath water” never made sense to me: wouldn’t you take the baby out of the bath first before throwing away the water? Unlike falling overboard, which I can imagine, throwing out babies just sounds contrived to me.
I laugh with things I think or remember all the time.
I’ve always had the hardest time with the idiom “throwing the baby out with the bath water,” because it really makes no sense in modern times. The water goes down the drain. The baby doesn’t.
Of course, it comes from the days when babies were bathed in steel tubs, and the water was dumped out afterward, so I can understand the idiom. It’s a bad idea to throw the baby out with the bath water, literally and figuratively; the literal image of the baby getting thrown out reinforces the figurative idea. But it’s hard for my mind to hold, since obviously, the baby would get badly hurt. I instinctively cringe when I think about it. Same with the expression “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Pretty violent imagery.
Maybe it’s because I’m a visual thinker, but I tend to get those images more in text than by hearing a phrase. It’s much more likely, however, if it’s not intentional–I tend to be pedantic towards typos partly because of the amusing visual images I often get from them (and partly because they grab my attention). Visuals affect me emotionally far more than something heard–I sob like mad at movies, but rarely do songs evoke that response. (Music videos, on the other hand…)
Interesting, Jayn. I tend to cry at sad songs, but only if I’ve seen the printed lyrics beforehand. Otherwise, it’s likely that I won’t pick up the words at all.
I think you are right about more emotional power.
I have spent a lot of time explaining to my son about idioms etc. for that very reason. He sees things visually and takes them at face value and it hurts him and upsets him.
He asked me where his brother was and
I told him “he’s in bed, dead to the world” and
my son responded “Mum please don’t say that it worries me”
He’s now starting to get it. I think he is always going to be affected though.
I can really relate to your son’s response, Catherine. There are times that someone will make a joke with an expression like that, and the visual image (and accompanying emotional/psychological/spiritual response) is so strong that it’s difficult for me to laugh at the joke — even though I fully understand that it’s all meant to be humorous.
My understanding of idiomatic speech is something I have not been able to reconcile with my autism diagnosis. I’m not “supposed” to understand it, but I do. But I relate to this post 100%. Seeing the words “it’s no skin off my nose” made me instantly and automatically reach up and rub the bridge of my nose – with downward strokes, because rubbing it upward would have “opened” it and I would have still needed to rub it downward to “close” it. (I also experience this on other areas of my body, like if something brushes my arm, I have to rub the skin in the direction of shoulder to wrist; otherwise I still feel the thing that brushed me.)
Any speech involving violence towards animals, no matter how idiomatic, evokes an automatic response in me as well. I can’t let myself think about it because I just can’t handle it. I won’t even retype the words.
And it’s true that my brain interprets idioms and metaphors more visually than I give it credit for. I was writing earlier this week and mentioned something about “a ball of anxiety,” and in my head was a silly image of a person spread-eagle on a giant ball – much taller than the person herself. I actually got agitated because the ball was rolling slowly, but because of the person’s position on the ball she could not adjust to accommodate the rolling. I somehow had an understanding that the ball would not roll over her, but I also couldn’t comprehend how it wouldn’t with her in that position! It was entirely contradictory. So I went from feeling anxious to trying to literally shake and hit this silly image out of my head because I just couldn’t get it to “work”! No wonder I need so much downtime with all these extra things going on inside my head.
With regards to laughing at times that seem odd because nobody else knows what is going on, for me this also extends to dealing with skin sensations like those I mentioned above. I often feel things on my skin when there are none (sometimes for no apparent reason and other times because I am thinking about it, like now), but I still have to “take care of it” as if there was something there because the feeling is real even if the thing causing it isn’t.
And I relate to your comment about not picking up on the words to songs, too. (Side note: I am picturing a person picking up words that are scattered on the floor.) It can be very difficult for me to know the lyrics to a song without reading them and memorizing them that way. Reading the lyrics also engages me emotionally (if I find them emotionally engaging), whereas listening to them without having read them usually does not.
Wow…this was a very thought-provoking post! It’s so nice to know that I am not the only one with these quirks and odd ways of experiencing things!
No, you’re definitely not alone! The other day, I said to someone on Facebook that she had her hands full, and she said something in response like, “Maybe you could give me your hands!” I know the meaning was figurative, but I found it impossible to come up with a response that didn’t entail the visual image of myself without hands at the end of my arms. So I just clicked “Like.”
I should also add that while I do understand idioms (usually), I very rarely use them. They don’t come naturally to me as a part of speech, but I still possess the ability to translate and categorize them.
The phrase “it’s like pulling t**th” makes me feel sick, not least because I’ve had t**th pulled, and do not wish to be reminded of that horrific experience.
It does get the idea across well, but I’d much prefer finding another combination of words that didn’t draw such a sensation-triggering picture.
An example that I use with great reluctance, and dearly wish there were evocative, effective substitute for, is (how do I say this without saying it ?) the “—- in pot of water, then the water is gradually heated, and by time —- realizes it’s lethal, it’s too late to escape.”.
I didn’t come up with this comparison myself, I’ve read/heard it in many places-and I “get” what it’s explaining (how conditions can seem innocuous at first, and only once you’re “in it” does the environment change, leading to your doom), but I’d rather have an alternate (non-gruesome) way to convey it.
I’ve always hated the expression “It’s like pulling t**th,” because my dad was a dentist and I actually saw him pull people’s teeth one summer when I was working in his office. I never, ever use that idiom — so when you come over, you can rest assured that it will never come up in conversation.
When I was a child, I was terrified when I heard my mother’s friend got fired. I thought they literally set her on fire. Through life experience and studying poetry, I can now appreciate the non-literalness of metaphors.
Oh, I thought this too about “being fired.” I used to get really frustrated with words having two or more meanings, but now I like wordplay humor.
It’s interesting, John. I didn’t take these things literally as a child; in fact, I don’t recall having strong visual images of these things at all. But when I started studying literature in college and grad school, I began to realize that what I love about idiom and metaphor is that the visual image and the figurative image coexist in my mind. For me, that’s most of the fun. Until recently, I thought that was true for everyone.
Yeah, I’ve had some entertaining literal visualizations of idiomatic expressions. I usually have to take a moment to remember what the idiom is supposed to mean.
It’s been some time since I found many of them upsetting (I guess desensitization through exposure) but I do sympathize with Lauren’s response to “it’s raining cats and dogs.” It actually takes effort for me to think of “heavy rain” in response to that idiom (or the same with the others you list).
From conversations I’ve been in, it seems autistic people have all kinds of thinking styles. Visual is not the only one: My own tends to be full-sensory, which means painful visualizations are painful, for example.
You’re right, Lisa. There are so many modes of thought. We really defy categorization — which doesn’t stop people from attempting to categorize us. So who are the ones with the strong need to systemize?
Rachel — I can definitely see this tendency in my own daughter’s life. When she was younger, she definitely applied the visual thinking to these common idioms and would really “freak out” at the thought of “keeping your eyes peeled,” for instance. Now that she’s older and has learned the difference between literal and figurative language, she often gets a smirk on her face as if she finds it amusing. It’s taken her a long time to get there, however — and I’m pretty sure she actually said the same thing about worrying over cats & dogs getting hurt if it were actually raining cats & dogs.
“Keeping your eyes peeled” — that’s another one of those idioms that triggers a visceral, visual response in me. My first inclination is to shout “NO!” and rub my eyes. But I don’t.
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My mother is very fond of telling people about a time when I was round three years old, and she said, while talking about something that had happened earlier, that she had “dropped her eyes.” I later learned that this meant she had lowered the direction of her gaze moving only her eyes rather than her whole head, but I was quite distressed! I thought her eyes had literally fallen out of her skull, and she couldn’t find them because she had consequently gone blind! So, ever the helper, I dropped to the floor and frantically began searching for them until she stopped me and explained the idiom.
I’m an Auspie who cannot visualize. I call it being internally blind (I can only visualize when I am asleep and dreaming.) Without the ability to think in images, I think primarily in patterns and sounds.
Without the visual attachments, I always found idioms absurd and silly and when someone would use one I would reply with a joke or pun, which would often surprise them as they were not trying to be funny. (If they were to say ‘it’s raining cats and dogs.’ I would say, ‘try not to step in a poodle,’ and then they would look at me funny.)
I think my point here is that whether or not the response is empathetic, such idioms tend to pull me out of the conversation and tend to make talking to people more difficult to me.
I wonder if this is common to all auspies?