The paper I mentioned in another toot also said that (autistic) people with malfunctioning autobiographical memory have trouble picturing both past and future.

It made me realize that I've never really thought about future. It's abstract to me. I can think about future in terms of upcoming events, or by preparing things for teaching or presentations, for instance. I've also had daydreams or plans about what I want to do. However, I rarely, if ever, actually think about it.

"Where do you see yourself in five years?" seems such an odd question to me. I can picture myself doing exactly the same things five years from now but that's not what the question is about, isn't it?

#ActuallyAutistic #AutobiographicalMemory @actuallyautistic

The other day, I finally read this academic paper on disrupted autobiographical memory in autistic people. (Sorry, forgot who linked to it in spring.) That resonated a lot.

While my semantic memory (basically, memory for facts) is quite alright, my episodic memory (memory of actual things happening) is absolute garbage. I've constructed a mental timeline of my life based on things that have happened, often anchored in certain events or years (semantic) but for the most part, have no recollection of experiencing those things (episodic). I might remember flashes but even those are more like photographs that don't include emotions.

Apparently neurotypicals are able to answer questions like "what did it feel like?" in detail. For me, such an answer would consist of basic emotions and even those might be based on reasoning -> "this event wasn't nice so I must've felt bad. I'm a sensitive person so I must've felt like crying." Since I'm very in touch with my current feelings, that helps, but the memory trace doesn't include emotional details.

The paper explains that this disruption may lead to a vague self-image (my wording) but that doesn't seem to be the case for me. It may be due to this timeline I explained. I've invested in this timeline of mine quite much, and complete with some key memories I have a very strong concept of myself.

At any rate, I've lost so much of my life. I simply don't remember. While for the most part, the journey of coming to grips with understanding I'm autistic has been more of "that makes sense" and "that's actually cool", this part really made me sad. I hate it that I have this garbage memory.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9586886/

#ActuallyAutistic #memory #AutobiographicalMemory @actuallyautistic

‘To help make connections: name 5–7 things that interest you but aren’t in your profile, as tags so they are searchable. Then boost this post or repeat its instructions so others know to do the same.’

OK, I’ll try to choose things that aren’t in *any* of my fediverse profiles! Hmm 🤔

How about #biology, #HumanComputerInteraction, #learning, #mindfulness, #philosophy, #psychology and #UrbanDesign for starters?

Relatedly:
#accessibility #ActiveTravel #aphantasia #AutobiographicalMemory #biochemistry #BodyDoubling #CellBiology #ColourPerception #consciousness #genetics #GreenSpace #HCI #hearing #hyperphantasia #mind #neuroscience #perception #SDAM #SoftwareDesign #TransitSystems #UrbanTransit #UserExperience #vision

Long overdue #introduction!

I am at the Clinical Psychology and Experimental Psychopathology unit at the University of Groningen. I study #Trauma and #Autobiographicalmemory. More recently I got captivated by the #Replicationcrisis and #Openscience. I'm here to learn as much as I can about that and implement it in my research and teaching.

Also I'm involved in organising #ReproducibiliTea meetings in Groningen.

In other news, I'm on the #postdoc #jobmarket for a new position starting next spring/summer. I'm broadly interested in how technology shapes social dynamics and how social dynamics in turn influence technology use and design. Most of my work so far builds on social practice theory and I use #quantitative and #qualitative research methods. My second area of interest is #autobiographicalmemory, #reflection, and #reminiscence.

Maybe this can also serve as my #introduction post? 👋 😀