Sat, 03 Jun 2023 02:45:53 -0700WeeblyFri, 19 Aug 2022 01:17:08 GMThttps://www.theaspieneuroscientist.com/a-day-in-an-aspie-neuroscientists-mind/sensory-discomfort-gives-me-the-shiversI've had them for ages, and knew that they went away when I was concentrated on something: these shivers that start as a buzz up my neck and shoulders and spread from there into my head and back, until I physically shiver as if in a cold spell. And sometimes it does come with a cold sensation.

But it was my daughter, a fellow Aspie who has the same shivers, who finally figured out where those shivers came from: sensory discomfort. Now I realize that I get them every time I walk past somebody wearing black-and-white stripes. Every. Time. ]]>Tue, 13 Aug 2019 11:50:09 GMThttps://www.theaspieneuroscientist.com/a-day-in-an-aspie-neuroscientists-mind/i-hate-italian-subway-ventsThey give me nausea. Why? They are long arrays of perfect gratings, that is, parallel bars of metal against a pitch-black background. The contrast is very high, and the gratings move on my retina, and therefore on my visual cortical neurons, as I walk towards then on them on the sidewalks. Any visual neurophysiologist will tell you that the result of showing moving gratings to visual cortical neurons is massive activation, with an atypically high firing rate that no natural scene will ever provoke.

How and why that leads to nausea, I don't know yet. But the nausea is instantaneous, along with an annoying pain-like feeling between the eyes, as if I were forcing both eyes to look inwards. Striped shirts and dresses do the same to me. I often have to find a way to discretely block the view of the assaulting stripes in the garments of people who are in my line of sight.

Architects, please take note: low contrast and gentle curves, with only the occasional straight line here and there, please...
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