What would life be like if you were unable to ignore sensations as minor as the hum of a fluorescent light, the glint of sunlight on a window, or the rub of clothing against your skin? Making sense out of the torrent of stimuli that continually bombards us is like narrating a story: ignoring what's irrelevant is at least as important as highlighting what's essential. Reflecting on the importance of this internal narration in human perception, Marcel Proust observed that experiences are less real when you have them than when you either remember them or imagine them. In autism, a neurobiological condition affecting attention and executive function, it often seems as if the internal narrator has quit the scene, leaving a confused reader or interpreter to fend for himself. Using neurophysiological theories of attention and language in autism as well as first-hand narratives composed by people with autism, we'll consider how altered neurophysiology affects perceptual experience, and how this perturbed experience produces a uniquely autistic psychology. Along the way, we'll gain insight into how the normal human psyche constructs a barrier between sensation and perception, keeping chaos and disorder at bay and allowing us to live functional lives. Readings will include Grandin's Thinking in Pictures, as well as excerpts from Barron's There's a Boy in Here and Bauman and Kemper's The Neurobiology of Autism. Students will keep weekly journals to record their reflections on our readings and discussions. Each student will lead at least one discussion on a reading of their choice.

Note: This seminar is open to all freshmen. However, since the seminar leader is a house fellow at East Campus, the social focus of the advising group will be East Campus. Prospective residents of East Campus are therefore particularly encouraged to apply. Questions and correspondence about this seminar should be addressed to belmonte@mit.edu.

From an early age, Matthew Belmonte had an obsessive interest in what makes things work, and felt more at ease with objects than with people. Over the years he's channelled his obsessions into his work as a computer programmer, a short-order cook, a printing press operator, and most recently a writing instructor at MIT and an autism researcher at nearby McLean Hospital, where he conducts magnetic resonance imaging studies of brain structure and function. He has an autistic older brother and an autistic niece.