Pathologically Genuine, Post II: Umwelt and Autism
There are an infinite number of realities based on how organisms sense and process the world. It might help to think about neurodiversity in this way.
There are advantages of being assessed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) late in life that go beyond finding the missing pages of one’s life story. My ASD assessment allowed me to legitimately draw upon the lyrics of a Nickel Creek song “others have excuses, but I have my reasons why.”1 For example, I no longer need excuses for refusing to attend large, loud, networking receptions. I now know there are reasons why such receptions are a bad idea. These include sensory overload, difficulty in reading the social cues necessary to engage in small talk, and the possibility of a painful death from the allergen like effects of wearing anything other than shirts without buttons, broken in blue jeans and old sneakers.
Another advantage is that I can now reflect on my life and interpret it in more expansive ways. And I can reflect on my work as an evolutionary ecologist to think about autism from that perspective.
I use excerpts2 of Ed Yong’s book, An Immense World3 in my introductory biology, ecology and evolution classes. It is a fascinating read discussing the vast array of ways that animals sense and process the world. One conclusion that you can’t avoid from his work is that every species on the planet has its own objective reality which may or may not overlap with the objective reality of any other species. I find it comforting in some way that there are an infinite number of objective realities. It’s like knowing there is a cool breeze somewhere, with no alligators, when you are melting in the heat and humidity of an Everglades swamp.
An Immense World is grounded in the concept of “umwelt.” The umwelt concept originated with German zoologist, Jakob von Uexküll. He used the term to mean the way in which an animal senses and processes its environment creating its own perceptual world. For example, humans have three opsins allowing us to sense and process a beautiful world within a relatively small spectrum of light but a much greater perception of color than most organisms can see. Mockingbirds have four opsins so can see a full range of colors that humans can’t see with 3600-degree vison and much faster hearing. Bees live in world of ultraviolet light and magnetism. Bats live in a world of echoes. Seals have such a sensitive sense of touch that they track prey simply through sensing tiny amounts of turbulence in the water. Just imagine how differently these animals would interpret the Mona Lisa.
I took away from Ed Yong’s writings that humans may very well be able to describe everything there is to know about an animal’s perceptual reality. For example, we might be able to determine every auditory component there is to know about a whale song. We may be able to determine the way a whale’s brain lights up when hearing the song. But we probably will never know how a whale actually experiences hearing that song.
Don’t let the concept of umwelt support the view that there are “alternative facts.” The physical and biological properties of the universe at least come close to being an objective reality. It is just that every organism evolved to sense and process different parts of this reality. So, they can experience the same exact thing (e.g., a sunset or the Mona Lisa) but from totally different perspectives. This is one reason to have teams that are diverse in their perspectives.
It should not be a surprise that I related to the concept of umwelt. As an autistic person, I sense and process the world differently than the average human. This includes more sensitivity to some sounds, light, textures, and smells that the average person. In case you ever invite me over for dinner, it would be advisable not to serve anything with the texture of lutefisk, mousse, or pudding, unless you enjoy seeing terror in my face or watching me dash to the bathroom. And, you may want to have a squirt gun by your side to spray me when I start going on and on when I answer your questions about something I am interested in, especially when all you wanted was a “yes” or “no” answer.
My autistic traits can lead me to having no clue of how you are experiencing a conversation with me. I also have a naïve trust in people since I can’t read intentions or sincerity on occasion. I probably sense and process human behavior, deal with physical and emotional intimacy, experience emotions, and think about fairness differently than the average person.
I also have a gift for seeing connections and patterns which made ecology a fantastic field for me. It served me really well as an academic administrator, too. Also, my ability to see patterns and connections made matrix algebra really easy, but geometry was almost impossible. In junior high, I scored really high on a math placement test leading to being part of handful of gifted students that were placed in geometry. But, I have deficits in 3-D perception, so geometry was really difficult. Later, as a forestry major, I had to take cartography. The class not only was about making maps, but it also involved constructing and interpreting engineering drawings. Back then maps were drawn and lettered by hand. So, not being able to draw a straight line and having illegible handwriting was a bit of a problem. A bigger problem was that I couldn’t look at an engineering diagram, with drawings of each dimension of an object, and imagine that object in my head. So, I barely made it to a “D” in cartography.
To make matters worse, the instructor in the class, Claude Z. Westfall, made it clear to everyone that if you did not do well in interpreting engineering diagrams or making maps, then you were a seriously bad evolutionary mistake. He might be write about the evolutionary mistake part- but if so, it had nothing to do with cartography. My grade in this course was my only D in higher education It almost killed my confidence. My PhD from Yale is embedded in wood. I wanted to go to Maine and crack him over the head with it.
I wish I had also known about the concept of umwelt earlier. Once I did, I found it a useful way to think about my being neurodiverse. Science might be able one day to explain all of the genetic, physiological and environment factors that lead to sensing and processing the world differently as an autistic person, but it may never be able to reveal to you or anyone else how I experience the world. That should be comforting because you might not want to know how I experience the world.
The umwelt concept also allows me to approach neurodiverse students in a very flexible ways. I do whatever I can as a professor to get to know them and their challenges and try to meet them where they are in class using a variety of tools in my toolbox. It has made me far less judgmental about people and students in my classes. Umwelt is powerful in that way. Just imagine how much better communication would be if we recognized that different people see the world differently and didn’t turn up the volume of anger because someone couldn’t perceive the world in the same way.
A therapist of mine helped me with a micro example of this idea. Dirty dishes in the sink make me crazy. If I walk into the kitchen and there are dirty dishes in the sink, I can’t do anything until I clean them or put them in the dishwasher. I don’t always clean them well, but I need them somewhat clean and somewhere else. Getting them somewhere else other than the sink restores order in my world.
My wife is a much neater person than me and is responsible for everything nice in our house. She has tremendous design skills and understanding of color. She can perfectly map out the design of living room using graph paper. I can’t even draw a straight line. But she is fine if her dishes only make it from the table to the sink to be cleaned later.
There was one period in our life that I would come home stressed from work and find dishes in the sink. I let myself believe that she had left the dishes there as a passive-aggressive way to piss me off. So, I cleaned the dishes making as much noise as possible to return the passive-aggressive behavior. OK, I admit that was a pretty idiotic response.
This was a time in my life when I was working with a therapist who assessed me with ASD. I was complaining about the regular battle of the dirty dishes and my wife’s malevolent motives for not doing them right after she eats. He just laughed. Then he said something to the effect “she just doesn’t give the shit.” I didn’t understand the concept of umwelt then, i.e., that my wife sensed and processed the world of dirty dishes very differently than I did. But. the comment still transformed my approach to the dishes. I just do the dishes now with a smile (or sometimes a grimace). I am a far happier person at home.
Umwelt, as it relates to autism, is a particularly important concept to me because it makes me very humble in face of infinite perceptual realities of neurodiverse or neurotypical people. It is clear that I share many traits with others diagnosed with ASD. But, in interacting with hundreds of neurodivergent students over the last five years, it is clear that I experience those traits very differently. This has really helped me as a professor and became the foundation for how I try to meet students where they are with no prescribed ways of approaching how I can help.
The fact that there is so much variation in how autistic people experience the world, even with similar traits, is why I wanted to tell my own story.
References
1Watkins S, Puckett D. 2000. Reasons Why. Nickel Creek (album). Track 5. Sugar Hill. UNSPSC Code : 55111512
2Yong E. 2022. How Animals See Themselves. New York Times Guest Essay, June 20, 2022
3Yong E. 2022. An Immense World: How animals senses reveal the hidden world around us. Random House. ISBN: 0593133234