In a comment regarding aspies and auties, "jane" says:Also, I've found that aspies can be made to feel an emotional understanding through music or movies. They do so love their movies.Okay, yes, I think this applies at least in part to sociopaths too. We all know that music and movies with music are manipulative. Case in point, even though I am generally cold-hearted, I can frequently be moved by certain films, sometimes so much so that I have a crisis of identity and wonder, do I have the full spectrum of emotions after all? But it seems like not really, because only movies and music reliably trigger it. How do they do it? Tap into our primal psyches to produce some sort of behavioristic response? Like when our eyes water when we see other people's eyes tearing up? Or like how yawns are contagious? Do chimpanzees do the same? Does that mean sociopaths are closer evolutionarily to chimps than humans? Ha.
Also Jane says in response to my advocacy of neurodiversity rights for sociopaths:
I suppose I just feel that trying to put us on the same page as aspie's is the namby-pamby way out when there's much more fun to be had simply remaining unidentified rather than accepted as defected.Too true, Jane. Particularly because if we, for whatever reason, needed to be "out" or part of an acknowledged acceptable neurodiversity "minority," we could just masquerade as aspies by toning down the charm, playing up the social awkwardness, and pretending to be obsessed with something bizarre like '80's action movie music scores. Right aspies?
I do the same thing insofar as responding emotionally to movies and music. Novels, too, sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why music elicits this response, save to guess that perhaps music influences emotions through a mechanism other than empathy.
For movies and books, though, I think a big part of it is that it's easier to identify with a fictional character. Since most movies are enjoyable primarily by identifying with one or more characters, it's essential that they're designed to encourage that identification, and that because people enjoy movies more when they can identify, they train themselves to do so. Sociopaths included.
I find that the only times I am moved to feel are from movies and music. I thought I was the only one.
ReplyDeleteIf you play a film and mute the sound, it isn't very moving at all, so I'll just say that it's really the music that moves people. I'm quite unemotional now, but music does really stir my emotions.
ReplyDeleteApparently when a human hears sound, it is processed in an area of the brain that's right next to the part that is aroused by touch. Although for some reason now touch doesn't mean very much to me (when it felt amazing to be hugged a few years ago), perhaps this is the reason music stirs up emotions.