A Note on Magic and Predictions

The book High-Functioning Autism and Difficult Moments: Practical Solutions for Reducing Meltdowns by Brenda Smith Myles (2016) contains a metaphor I find worth sharing.

Myles cites researcher Peter Vermeulen on the latest findings about the “predictive brain.” The idea is that neurotypical brains naturally build models to sense what they will see or hear in advance, whereas autistic neurology often struggles to predict what will happen next.

Vermeulen compares this to a magician who cues an audience's brains just right to fool them into believing in magic. For an autistic person, mundane occurrences can feel “magical” in a frightening way, because there is no discernible cause for what is happening — like experiencing the “shock and awe” of witnessing a magic trick happening at every corner. The desire for sameness and ritual provides a means of discerning the causes of an environment — a way of making the world predictable.

Myles, B. S., Trautman, M. L., & Schelvan, R. L. (2016). High-functioning autism and difficult moments: Practical solutions for reducing meltdowns. AAPC Publishing. The predictive-brain account is Peter Vermeulen's, as discussed there.