For example, when my grandma thinks about the months of the year, she visualizes them as a circle, with January on the left, the spring months going over the top, the summer months on the right, fall curving around the bottom and December on the left just underneath January. My months are much more boring -- just a straight line going down.
Wade sees his numbers in a square, as illustrated here (I think he's the crazy one because after 100 there just aren't any more numbers!). My numbers, shown below, wander a bit before going straight up to 100 and then filling the sky with numbers higher than 100 (maybe I'm crazy too, because actually numbers 13-19 are on stepping stones crossing a creek).
Are we nuts, or do you visualize sets in certain patterns, too? Where does this come from? Why do Mom and Grandma and I all have similar number patterns while Wade's is completely different? Please tell me it's not just something in the water on our road.
6 comments:
This is fascinating. I'm not suggesting you have Asperger's (which is like a mild form of autism), but I've heard that people who are closer toward Asperger's on the autistic spectrum tend to think in this way -- visualizing numbers and patterns more than most people. Are you generally a visual learner/thinker? Read this article. It's not exactly what you are talking about, but what you said reminded me of this, and I find it to be a really interesting article. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Books/story?id=2794451&page=1
Ang
Wow, really interesting article. Mom, Kris and I also see numbers (and letters) as having genders and certain personalities, but not colors or shapes like this guy mentions. Maybe there's a touch of this in our family. Too bad I didn't get the amazing math skills as well!
Kerri
It's weird because I totally visualize patterns with words and sentences, but I don't do much with numbers in my head. I do take phone numbers sometimes and add all the digits together in my head and divide them up in different ways, but I don't have any kind of visualization of where numbers belong. I guess to me they are just a straight line or something. I had never thought of seeing numbers the way you illustrated it, or even the way you showed Wade as seeing them.
No way, that is wicked weird (meaning very weird, not evil). Wade's pattern makes more sense to me, but I don't usually visualize it that way. I visualize numbers in a straight line like Ang, from left to right. 0 is right in front of me, positives to my right, and negatives to my left. But wow Kerri, your pattern is wicked weird! hahaha. But, in my opinion "weird" is always very fascinating. I am totally intrigued. I will show this pattern to my friend who has a son in the autism spectrum. He has trouble with numbers, maybe this pattern would make more sense to him. Like Ang said, not that you're autistic, but you sure have an interesting number picture!
I'd like to hear more about the pictures in your head. Fascinating!
You know, people with incredibly brilliant minds have patterns like this in their heads, just like is illustrated in that article Ang was talking about. So, even though you may not be incredibly brilliant with numbers, this pattern shows that you do have a brilliance tha transcends "normal" thought patterns. You're gifted with words, right? Do you see them in patterns like Angela does, or in some other sort of pattern?
Ok, I'll shut up after this. I just keep thinking of things related to this. My friend that I showed your pattern to has read about stuff like this and mentioned that "they" are studying people who think like this (like the one in Angela's article) and have found one commonality. Many do not have the middle part of their brain that separates the hemispheres. Most people have a part in their brain that separates the halves, but those super wizzes often do not have that or only have part of it. Interesting.
Done.
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