When I read the news item about the study yesterday, my reaction was typically Aspergian -- no intent in either case, and what the heck did the researcher mean by "intent?" Aside from questions of subtexts that are taken for granted by NTs, what struck me most is a pattern I've been seeing more and more lately, of poorly designed studies purporting to examine some aspect of the spectrum. Autism and Asperger's have become the niche de jour of "scientists," usually psychologists, who have very little training in scientific methodology. These people start out with unexamined assumptions, undefined terms and, apparently, complete ignorance of the basic statement that correlation does not equal causality. We need fewer "studies" and more insight.

First, I don't even understand the difference between the Free-Cup and Extra-Dollar cases. To me they seem exactly the same. My question when reading them was, "What do you mean by intentional?" I saw both the free cup and the extra dollar as side effects of his intention to get the largest smoothie.

I still don't see the difference after your explanation - he chose to receive the special cup just as he chose to pay the extra dollar. I guess I see the special cup as an obstacle just as I do the extra dollar - because I have a hard time throwing away things that are "special," maybe, so it would be a burden receiving the special cup if I didn't want it.

Second, I have the "everything but the sour cream" problem ALL THE TIME. I often find myself trying to figure out what something normally comes with (by discussing it with the server), and it's like pulling teeth. I just can't believe there's no default for what toppings something comes with.

So, I'm a little confused by your article - feeling a little more clueless than usual. I can't relate at all to why there's a difference between the special cup/extra dollar, AND is there really no default set of toppings?

Dear Lynne,

Thanks for this post. I acknowledge that there are several possible explanations f the difference we found between people with and without AS. Clearly, much more research is needed. It is indeed possible that pragmatics may be the place to look at.

But still, you write: "Within this frame of reference, the commemorative cup was merely a nice surprise, and the extra dollar was simply a means to an end, that end being the purchase of the Mega-Sized Smoothie."

Now the crucial point is that when an action is a means for something else, most people think that it is done intentionally. Here is an example: You want to enter a room, and to do so, you need to open the door. You open the door and enter the room. Did you intentionally open the door? Absolutely, since it was a means for your goal (entering the room) and since you had foreseen this.

So, even under your first interpretation of the extra-dollar case, most people without AS would say that paying the extra-dollar was intentional, precisely because it is a means.

In any case, thanks for your post.

Edouard

Thanks for that fascinating discussion. I had no idea that NTs were so weird. (Humour).

My thoughts on the cup example were typical of aspergers - I saw only the desired goal. Nothing else matters.

There's one thing missing from the puzzle though.

It's very possible that Joe bought the largest size because he always buys the largest size - regardless of how he's feeling.

those with Asperger's have impaired abilities to judge whether these actions were intentional.

Impaired? NO. How about different.

Even if he could foresee the obstacles involved in getting the smoothie, I don't see how the extra dollar and the special cup weren't both means to an end. He cannot receive the smoothie without receiving the special cup, so he must choose to receive the cup if he wants the smoothie.

To me the interesting question isn't "Why do people with Asperger's see both cases as non-intentional?" but rather "How can others see one as intentional and the other not?".

Presumably, if you want the mega-smoothie, there is no choice in either case. You must accept the fancy cup or higher price. I can't see any definition of 'intentional' which - applied consistently - would give different answers to the two questions.

I wonder if the difference is due to consumer socialisation.

Maybe there are a lot of messages out there promoting the idea that if a vendor provides a free giveaway its due to the generosity of the vendor whereas if a vendor tries to gouge more from their customers its a matter of consumer choice as to whether to give them their business.

And maybe its just that people with Asperger's are less likely to have been socially conditioned into that perspective.

I think I'm more AS than NT, but I got it right: he unintentionally got the cup and intentionally spent the extra dollar. That's because the cup was a consequence of his real intent (the bigger smoothie) while the dollar was a required means to get to his real intent. He intended large therefore was required to intend the dollar.

I'm not positive, but I bet what makes me different than NT is that NT would not have had to think that paragraph in their head to justify the intention, in order to figure out what the intention was.

I'm not convinced that the two Joe-the-dehydrated-smoothie-drinker situations are really different. I answered "No" for intent in both cases. I ran the two stories past my boyfriend and he answered "No" for the first and "Yes" for the second (the typical non-Aspergian answer). I asked him to explain how he came to different conclusions for each example, but his explanation didn't make sense to me. I still don't see a difference between the two instances. The example of the closed door from Machery didn't help because it's not similar enough to the smoothie examples. Maybe a diagram would help the visual thinkers out here.

In any case, I agree with Lizzie's post that giving the typical Aspie answer to this pop quiz doesn’t demonstrate “impaired” function. I believe that my boyfriend and I can both have valid—though dissimilar—interpretations of Joe’s intent.

In this case, interpreting things differently is just a Curious Incident of Neurodiversity in the Human Race.

PS—About the Haddon example: I would feel dishonest if I agreed that hitting someone was an “accident” when I MEANT to hit them without meaning to harm them. The definition of “accident” means no intent to do whatever you did—NOT no intent to cause harm. Lynne may be on to something. Maybe we Aspies and our neurotypical friends are talking across a language barrier.

Uhm... ok. No wonder funny conclusions are drawn by psychologists/specialists in these type of cases. Try make it as complex as possible for something really simple and see which respondent gets more confused by the idiotic behaviour of your imaginary characters! My aspie reaction was: just give the man the damn enormous smoothie, ok? He will, intentionally, get really upset if he stays thirsty, and yes, he will, intentionally, pay whatever it costs, and you are welcome to give it to him in a trash can if that is what it comes in, today. And that really was his only intent. What is tough about getting that? You mean, NT's don't get it like this? Are they, like, stupid? (Which they're not, but case studies like these seem to imply that they are). This is a simple case study of logic, nothing to do with aspieness (unless you want to proof the rather old, long and well-proven theory that we are quite logical???).

If it were me, I would want the smoothie, I wouldn't want the special cup, and I wouldn't want to pay the extra dollar. Both the cup and the dollar are obstacles to my real goal. The cup might even be the bigger obstacle, because I would have to decide what to do with it. Do I keep it, or throw it away? If I keep it, do I use it or just put it away somewhere? A dollar, OTOH, is just a dollar.

So both are unintentional. All I wanted was the damn smoothie in the regular cup at the regular price, but to get a smoothie, I had no choice but to pay more or take a stupid fancy cup.

I used to have a similar problem whenever I was offered food that wasn't planned in advance. Someone would buy snacks in a moment's whim, and then would ask me, "Do you want some?" I always answered "No," meaning that I wasn't thinking of that snack until that moment, and therefore I couldn't have been wanting it. I took it as a mind-reading question, in the sense of "You were planning to eat this, weren't you?" So the answer was always no, I didn't literally want it. It took me some years to understand that question in its intended meaning of "I'm offering you the opportunity to have some of my snack. Do you accept it?"

If anyone is interested in understanding the psychoepistemology of a person born with Aspergers, may I recommend Thinking in Pictures by Dr. Temple Grandin? She clearly elucidates how her mind works and makes the point that she originally thought in pictures. Language, the use of concepts to stand for pictures and concepts, was something she struggled to use.

Maybe I have the opposite of Aspergers, in that I tend to think in principle vs. pictures. Could someone explain why is that psychologists feel they must run a study to figure out something that's already been figured out? Is knowledge impure in someway if it hasn't been put through a study? Or is it that many of these researchers have Aspergers, or at the very least the inability to think in broad abstractions?

The intent was to stop the woman asking questions, and get what you wanted originally.

The sheeple (NT People) of this world seem to assume a lot. I have seen the same thing with orders of "everything", and we eat in certain places now, because when someone says "no peas" and peas are delivered, it gets rather awkward asking them to take things back and replate completely rather than just removing the peas.

To a neurotypical person, removing the peas solves the problem. To someone with Aspergers, the facct the peas were on the plate when it was requested that they were not is an issue. Simple request, and then when the peas arrive, how on earth do you deal with it? It is far easier to deal with the plate being removed and returned without the peas.

Our household contains 2 ADHD (one with AS traits, one borderline Aspergers), and 2 Aspies. We take nothing for granted, explain our intent clearly, and have little family stress, as we understand that what is said is what is meant, and there is little room for confusion.

I've wondered for years what is wrong with me. Why can't I properly interpret what others mean & why don't they get my meaning? I even completed an extra college degree in my search for the answer. Now if only there was a "treatment"...

I have AS (borderline) and I got the answer right about the cup thing was not intentional and the dollar thing was.

But what I don't get is why do people not understand "I want everything except sour cream." I knew you meant it literally but others didn't know you meant what you exactly meant. I hate it when people don't take me literal.

I guess that is my AS there because I cannot see the person's perspective who didn't take it literal. What I see is, that person is an idiot for not understanding. I get mad at my bf when he doesn't take me literal. I say "What do you not understand?" He sure gets it right after that.

But I am different than other aspies. I do not go into specifics like if someone asked me "is the bathroom clean?" My answer varies. I will say "yes" or "I don't know" because I don't know that person's definition of clean and I certainly don't want to say "Yes" and that person checks it and says it's dirty, so therefore I made myself look like I've lied. Sometimes I will say "Define clean."
My brain works different every time.

I'm self-diagnosed PDD or somewhere on the high end of the spectrum. I got the question "right," but I had to think about what they meant.

My interpretation was this:

Joe did not intentionally get the commemorative cup because he made it clear to the server that he didn't care about the cup. Therefore, he couldn't be sure until the smoothie was served whether he was going to get it in the fancy cup or if the server would elect to put it in a (presumably) less expensive plain one.

He intentionally paid the extra dollar because he knew at the point of the transaction that he would have to do so in order to get the smoothie.

I agree with all the other Aspies, however, that this is not the true definition of the word "intentionally."

Similarly, I had an Aspie bf once who used to get all worked up when I would respond to a statement he made with "really?" as in:

Him: "I got a raise today."
Me: "Really?"

Most Americans know subconsciously that "really?", when used this way, actually means "wow." He couldn't get past the literal meaning even after repeated explanations and continued to believe that this response was questioning his veracity. Since honesty in all things is also a big deal for him, he was terribly offended by that response. Ultimately, the problem was solved with behavior modification on my part.

As to the "everything but sour cream" incident, I used to chuckle over how I had to order a cheeseburger at Wendy's. Since the cheese costs extra, you have to say what size burger you want and then specify "everything and cheese." How can you add something to everything?

Isn't the question really, "Did the fast food place take advantage of Joe, when he got the cup and paid the extra dollar?"

Isn't that the underlying point of this study -- to see if/how Aspies are disadvantaged in the NT world, with the NT (ab-/mis-)use of language?

Putting the onus of the error on the shoulders of Joe totally relieves the fast food place and the clerk behind the counter of any responsibility in the social/financial give-and-take. It's clearly a trap set up to eke an extra dollar out of Joe and/or spread around that pernicious petrochemical-based fast-food-branding paraphernalia which is a pox on our planet. By saying "Joe didn't understand" instead of "The fast food place totally took advantage of him -- and who knows how many other customers who don't have AS but are in too much of a friggin' hurry to stop and parse through the personal financial ramifications of a split-second choice" makes Joe into a hapless victim and absolves the weasely (my apologies to weasels and the whole Mustelidae family) fast-food place of any culpability -- which they totally have.

This is such a poor example of a "study" I don't even know where begin. You'd have to test out the hypothesis against the rest of the NT population, which -- as I mentioned above -- might well make exactly the same choice(s), but based on different criteria. Please, someone find me a REAL exploration of this issue of language usage differences, which is not a small one, especially in my life.

Talking about "intention" is a tricky subject, as people have amply pointed out above. The word "intent" needs to be defined... AND the whole purpose of the "study" needs to be communicated. I wasn't sure why, in fact, the question about Joe's "intentions" was posed in the first place -- again, is this more NT assumption about what is implied with language?

As a self-diagnosed Aspie, who consistently scores high on the spectrum on every single AS test I've come across and who has four decades' (plus a few years') worth of experiences and internal dialogues just such as this, I just cringe at this pseudo-scientific approach to "understanding" Aspies. From where I'm sitting, no NT "scientist" should even commence a social experiment pertaining to Aspies without a good deal of Aspie input, if not an equal partner in the designing the study who has AS.

Reframe the question. Get clear on the objective. Define your terms. Communicate your understandings of the terminology used. And perform an actual test. With all due respect, it's the least the Aspie-curious (and often exploiting) NT world can offer us.

VV

It seems to me that most people I interact with, from Australia to Germany, "subtext" as Lynne Soraya (Asperger's Diary, Nov. 6th 2008) puts it. The example of the inspector in Haddon's novel, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time", indicates that he had trouble forming sentences which described exactly what he meant. If subtexting is "normal", that is NT behaviour, then it is a case to support the observation that what is normal (what the majority does) isn't necessarily desireable/good/healthy/appropriate/wise.... insert own adjective.

I don't know "what" I am, other than that I have an interest in what motivates people (and therefore me), and how language relates to that motivation, both in terms of what and how we choose to express our thoughts, and in the reverse direction of analysing the language we use to become more aware of what and how we are thinking and what motivates our behaviour.

The cup/dollar exercise suggests to me, rather than drawing a distinction between ASs and NTs, more is being said about the extent to which individuals reflect upon, and seek intended meaning from, that which is being expressed. I get a "sense" that the variance within both groups (AS & NT) is greater than any significant difference between the two groups, at least from the comments in this and Machery's blogs. Could this be the case? (I would tend to side with Lynne and her views above re. semantics, but then if the semantics were sorted out and other experiments designed to control for semantical vagaries, could not my comment be valid?)

Reflecting on language used, incoming or outgoing, is a skill which can be actively learnt, and it appears to me that maybe the responses in these blogs differ more as a result of the differing extent to which people have learnt to scrutinize their, and other's, use of language, rather than anything inherent in either the experiments cited or that there might exist a "syndrome" or not.

(This is my first ever public contribution to anything.... I'm preparing for all the worst: being rhetorically shot to pieces, or totally ignored even.... Love the forum, whatever happens! Thanks.)

Alex.

I am the mom of one Aspie girl -17, and two other children with Aspie traits. Interestingly, I did the test and gave all the Aspie responses and asked the same questions about intent. Hmmmm. Anyway, my difficulty is in figuring out if what I'm saying has subtext or not. Sometimes I just can't tell. I tend to find out when my daughter reacts in what I think is an inappropriate way. Then I realize that she hasn't heard what I said in the same way I "heard" it. School is the worst - for example, she lost 20% of her mark because a teacher told her to take her work home. She MEANT take it home, finish it, and bring it back. But that isn't what she said. At the parent interview, she had a hard time believing that my daughter didn't understand, implying either that she was stupid or manipulative. Ironically, I thought she was stupid (a trained teacher should have some understanding of differences) or manipulative (to agree with my explanation would mean that she had made a mistake)

At home, my daughter cannot do open-ended tasks - like clean her room, because there is no specific start or stop place - BTW are lightbulbs ever dusted?!!!

MOstly it makes life constantly confusing - so I begin to wonder about ME. sigh.

Just to avoid confusion the 2nd sentence in the 5th paragraph should read:
Over time this widespread inability to use the correct word actually alters the meaning (or adds a new meaning) to the word.

It was a slight change of text and I forgot to remove a few words which I had originally typed.

This argument, and subsequent comments, seems spot-on in terms of how the word intention was to be defined. For those who are a little neurotic (perhaps a symptom of A.S., I don't know much about the condition) the end question requires more clarification before being answered.

I have noticed an inordinate amount of confusion regarding the "everything but sour cream" incidence, however. Given the nature of the question "why does it not come with everything?", and the argument that the server fails, in fact, to deliver "everything", is flawed. Do you really want everything except sour cream? Everything means everything. Do you want cheese? Probably. Beans? Likely, as well. Onions? Sure. How about the cream of potato soup? Some A-1 sauce as well? Some chili on top? Cilantro and oregano? Mayonaise, ketchup, mustard, dijon, and ranch, vinegar, and olive oil, as well, correct? Some Pepsi and Sprite from the soda fountain, too. If you were to be taken literally, you'd be requesting all this, and then some. A.S. or not, you ascribed some sub text to your statement whether you like it or not. Your statement would then read: "Can I have everything (that a person could theoretically put on a burrito without being disgusted) except sour cream?". This is likely interpreted by the server as "Can I have everything (that comes on the burrito I ordered) except (the) sour cream?"

Their burritos likely do not include salsa or jalepenos, and as their servers wait on a considerable amount of people (as opposed to your one meal), they have a better idea of what your supposed "everything" actually entails.

By your own statements, you clearly do not mean what you say, and that your "everything except sour cream" clearly does not mean that you want "EVERYTHING except sour cream."