The Microsociology of Autism* Alexander Durig, Ph.D. Indiana University Spring, 1993 * The author would like to thank Kimber Durig for her assistance. Address all correspondence to Alexander Durig, Ph.D., Sociology Department, 744 Ballantine Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. Abstract Microsociology is a science of human behavior and is thus deeply challenged by the experience of people with Autism. The author argues for a microsociological approach to Autism on the grounds that (1) the social nature of people with Autism' problems in conversational interaction are of interest and relevance to microsociology as a science of conversational interaction, (2) when applied, microsociology's logical inference theory of the subjective organization of trans-situational meaning becomes a logical inference theory of Autism which is the first theory to explain all five classic characteristics of Autism, and, (3) since microsociology posits that meaning, mind, language, self, and emotions are shaped almost exclusively through conversational interaction, the meaningful perceptions and behavior of people with Autism provide provocative case studies which can promote a cross-fertilization of the disciplines of microsociology, Autism research, and neuroscience. ~DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD~ Dedication In this paper I will interject citations in italics from Donna Williams' seminal work Nobody Nowhere as evidence for my claims. Donna Williams has affirmed my appreciation of Autism. Thus, I gratefully dedicate this work to her. ~DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD~ Conventional definitions of "Autism" have led to conventional analyses. Usually traceable to Kanner's (1943) highly accurate formulation, as well as Asperger's (1944), there has been a continuing tendency, even in more recent formulations, for researchers to attempt to fashion theories of mind from their working experience with people with Autism (Baron-Cohen 1988). Nevertheless, one can not read current presentations of leading-edge research without noting that researchers are, by and large, unsatisfied with current attempts to get a handle on the experience of people with Autism, which seems in so many ways to be a lived paradox (Frith 1989, Coleman and Gillberg 1985). This paper aims toward filling that need. The exotic social experience of people with Autism offers microsociologists an opportunity to test existing theories of human behavior. This is directly relevant to the agenda of microsociology, which is the science of conversational interaction. I speculate that the experience of people with Autism is due to a genetic dysfunction which impairs the balanced development of the mental faculties necessary to experience conversational interaction which shapes meaning, mind, language, self, and emotions as we know them. It thus falls under the purview of neuroscience to explicate the neurological syntax which controls the development, or impairment, of the brain's consciousness, or awareness. I further argue that even though the basis of Autistic experience may be neurological, the subjective experience of people with Autism must be explained by a top-down approach to the semantics of mind, inasmuch as conversational interaction shapes consciousness into meaning, mind, language, self, and emotions. The clearest indication of success for my arguments is two-fold: (1) they dove-tail with the experience of people with Autism as chronicled by scientists and people with Autism themselves, and just as importantly, (2) they explain all five of the classic characteristics of Autism (Frith 1989), something no theory of Autism has been able to accomplish up to now. Specifically, by arguing that the subjective organization of trans-situational meaning is based in logical inference I will ultimately describe how it is that the five classic characteristics arise. Conversely, the assumption that my theoretical explanation of Autism is correct in turn generates new confirmation of existing microsociological conceptualizations of behavior. It is this possibility of a cross-fertilization among disciplines which is particularly noteworthy. Microsociologists might aid neuroscientists, for example, by describing the logical dynamics underlying the development of mind, thus approaching the syntax of consciousness from the top down. When microsociologists give neuroscientists a picture of how mind develops and organizes meaningful perception, then neuroscientists will have an idea what kinds of processes they must explicate. Currently there is no consensus regarding exactly how neuroscientists will organize and recognize the brain-based activities that underlie the existence of mind even if they see them, because there is simply no theory of mind complete enough to allow microsociologists, psychologists, physicians, and neuroscientists to engage in a mutually beneficial discourse on mind. So the tenor of this paper is actually one of interdisciplinary collegiality. I submit that I would not know enough to propose a logical inference theory of Autism were it not for the self-reports of people with Autism and the work of all who have contributed to our existing storehouse of knowledge through research and education of people with Autism. Neuroscience, the new science of the brain, may one day explicate the neuro-syntax of consciousness and mind and Autism, and microsociologists might in fact bridge the current gains of research into Autism with the destiny of neuroscience by bringing its own science of conversational interaction to bear on the experience of people with Autism in order to help further the enterprise of understanding and appreciating Autism. Current Theoretization in the Field of Autism The experience of interacting with people with Autism is itself so extraordinary there is good reason to believe that throughout history the condition of Autism has been variously interpreted as madness, saintliness, and even saintly madness (Frith 1989). Indeed, current theoretization in the field is not based so much on traditional understandings of Autism or mind as it is on exceptionally accurate accounting of the characteristics of Autism. In other words, a worldwide consensus has been achieved regarding the qualification or diagnosis of Autism by virtue of the layering of one systematic investigation on top of the other. These modern attempts can be traced back to the seminal work of Kanner, whose qualifications of the characteristics of the condition are considered among the first that became universally applicable. Uta Frith suggests there are at least five over-arching characteristics that must be explained in an adequate theory of Autism: (1) impaired social relationships, (2) impaired communication, (3) impaired make-believe play, (4) a peculiar pattern of intellectual abilities, and, (5) the repetitive phenomena of rituals (1989:173-174). There are a number of additional phenomena associated with Autism (Aarons and Gittens 1992), but due to spatial constraints I will confine my discussion to these five classic characteristics. ~DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD~ The Five Classic Characteristics of Pure Autism (1) Impaired Social Relationships People with Autism can be taught to manage their behavior (Dalrymple 1989, 1991). Yet even those who have experience and expertise working with people with Autism are confounded by the utter lack of sympathetic and reciprocal responses to others that people with Autism may manifest in conversational interaction (Barron and Barron 1992). People with Autism are so committed to routine activity that when faced with change or inconsistency they can experience great anxiety. They are typically unable to interpret the emotions of others and the expectations of others in conversational interaction (Williams 1992). Nevertheless, while they may seem oblivious to conversational interaction, they may at times repeat lengthy conversational interactions they have heard with complete accuracy. People with Autism seem to be locked into rigid understandings of the world, and unable to accommodate the give and take of normative conversational interaction. They have trouble making eye contact and physical contact, so face-to-face interaction is often frightening, and intrusive (Williams 1992; Aarons and Gittens 1992; Frith 1989). (2) Impaired Communication (e.g., echolalia, distorted pronomial usage, lack of expressive gestures, difficulty with pragmatics including the altered tone of voice, the faraway look in the eyes, and walking on tip-toes) What is especially difficult to understand in this characteristic is the way people with Autism can easily master some language processes that are sophisticated and be utterly incompetent in others that seem automatic to most people. People with Autism exhibit ease with syntax, but difficulty with pragmatics and communication in conversational interaction (Tager- Flusberg, Calkins, Nolin, Baumberger, Anderson and Chadwick-Dias 1990; Bartolucci and Pierce 1977; Cunningham, M.A. 1966). They can employ interpersonal gestures (usually they employ interpersonal gestures to terminate social contact!), but not expressive gestures (Attwood, Frith and Hermelin 1988). They may like to make up nicknames and learn new things, but they can not talk about what they have just learned on demand. People with Autism exhibit odd pronomial usage, often referring to themselves in the third person. They often speak in tones of voice that seem odd in normative conversational interaction, walk on their tip-toes, and exhibit a faraway look in their eyes. People with Autism have difficulty generalizing behavior and language from one situation to another, and they may experience anxiety when faced with any kind of language process that involves interpreting the demands and expectations of others. Even though they learn language through conversational interaction, they are impaired in their ability to respond socially to others linguistically and behaviorally as is evidenced by the phenomenon of echolalia. (3) Impaired Make-believe Play People with Autism do not typically exhibit normative peer culture interaction and "few studies have addressed the issue of play initiation training for Autistic children" (Oke, et.al. 1990). Research indicates people with Autism are generally unable to engage in normative peer interaction unless carefully taught how to do so in constrained circumstances (Haring and Lovinger 1989; Henning, Dalrymple, Davis and Madeira 1982) In people with Autism the pleasure of imaginative play is easily transformed into the pleasure of highly constrained ritualization. Yet, as people with Autism reach adolescence they may desire friendship with others (Aarons and Gittens 1992). (4) A Peculiar Pattern of Intellectual Abilities For the most part researchers have been amazed at the variety of intellectual abilities, of a sometimes highly sophisticated nature, that are often accompanied by the severe constraints of Autistic perception (Schopler and Mesibov 1983; Frith 1989). In some high-functioning people with Autism, the intellectual and artistic abilities surpass normative levels, and yet all the constraining characteristics still apply (Shah and Frith 1983; Rutter 1983; Williams 1992). The paradoxical intellectual achievements and impairments of people with Autism seem to defy logic, and yet I will argue that an understanding of the underlying logic of mind is exactly what we need to get a handle on the condition and experience of Autism. (5) The Repetitive Phenomenon of Rituals One of the hallmarks of Autism is the intense predilection for repetitive motion. It has historically been one of the most difficult of the characteristics to explain (Frith 1989). How is it that any cognitive or affective impairment would lead an individual to engage in relentless, focused, repetitive behavior often for extended periods of time (Williams 1992), and even as an expression of anger? Indeed, the faraway look in the eyes of the person with Autism, in combination with persevering repetitive motions, makes for a decidedly unusual display which ignorant people can find unnerving. ~DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD~ Interestingly, though, Kanner himself contributed to the confusion regarding theoretical explanation for the characteristics. He initially propagated the 'refrigerator mother' theory of Autism which proposed that Autism was the result of socialization by a cold mother, but later recanted that assertion (Coleman and Gillberg 1985). This line of reasoning has manifested itself in a bifurcation of Autism theory to this day. Baron-Cohen (1988) relates that Autism theories generally fall under two classifications: affective theories, and cognitive theories. The affective approach seeks to establish deficits in the emotional capacities of people with Autism which supposedly relates to conversational and interactional impairments they evidence. But, the affective approach fails to explain the anomalies in language usage exhibited by people with Autism, as well as the predilection for repetitive behaviors they exhibit. On the other hand, cognitive approaches typically subscribe to the "theory of mind" approach from psychology (Leslie 1987; Frith 1989). This approach claims that part of having a normal mind is being able to entertain a naive theory about the minds other individuals have as well. This approach does account marginally for the impairment to conversational interactional abilities, as well as tapping at the anomalies in speech of people with Autism. But it has not accounted for the repetitive behavior of people with Autism. Nevertheless, it is in the "theory of mind approach" that I find a stepping-stone to microsociological theory. The "theory of mind" states that mental representations come in two forms: (1) primary representations - which are those you experience subjectively, and, (2) meta-representations - which are your hypotheses regarding the primary representations of others. Leslie argues that these two kinds of meaningful perception are based in two different kinds of logic. Here lies the stepping-stone, for I agree with Leslie's assertion regarding the variation of logical dynamics underlying the mind. From my point of view, neither the affective nor the cognitive approaches are wrong. Rather, they are tautological: even though they are true enough, they do not tell us much. Of course, there must be significant affective and cognitive impairments to engender the experience of people with Autism. What is needed is a thoroughly systematic approach to the social construction of mind, one grounded firmly in principles of logic, in order that we might ultimately assay the underlying logical dynamics of mind and developmental disorders like Autism. I will argue that all mental phenomena represent an interplay of affect and cognition such that the two are inextricably interrelated, and that understanding meaningful perception is the key to understanding Autism: thus, a deviation from development of normative meaningful perception will necessarily entail concomitant deviations in both affect and cognition. Microsociology: The Science of Conversational Interaction Now I will begin relating some of the conceptualizations from microsociology I believe will be enlightening to those interested in Autism. I rely heavily on the work of the great American pragmatists C. S. Pierce and G. H. Mead. I have argued elsewhere (Durig 1991, 1992, 1993) that pragmatism must form the foundational base for the contemporary science of microsociology. Although I do not have space to address the complete prototheoretical argument at present, pragmatism is a powerful philosophy of action which begins with an interactive system as its premise, then proposes that all meanings and experiences of subjective and objective, and affective and cognitive, realities are mediated by experience in conversational interaction. In microsociology, meaning, mind, language, self, and emotions are conceived as the emergent expressions of consciousness as it is shaped through conversational interaction. In such an approach the entification or origin of meaning, mind, language, self, and emotions takes place almost exclusively by virtue of the individual actor's experience in conversational interaction. I will now briefly relate some of the logical dynamics which comprise this interactive shaping of consciousness. We can describe a constructive genesis of the interactive phenomena of interest in the following way: Gesture ->Significant Symbol ->Language ->Thought ->Mind ->Self We begin with a gesture that takes on meaning by virtue of shared experience in social interaction. For example: suppose one prehistoric hunter attempts to grab the food of another who reaches for a bone and violently accosts the first hunter, who recoils in fear. By virtue of the response of the first hunter, a meaning is imputed to the act of grabbing the bone. For this reason, we say 'the meaning is in the response'. Specifically, a cognitive implication along with an affective response are imputed to the act, thus creating a symbol. It is the implication of response to symbols which determines their meaning: picking up the bone now implies someone is about to be violently accosted. The gesture has now become a significant symbol. Systems of significant symbols become languages. And language internalized is thought. Thinking and becoming aware of social processes is having a mind. And when mind locates itself in those social processes, there is self. This is a cursory distillation of a good deal of philosophy and theory, but it serves the purpose of delineating the explicitly social nature of mental phenomena from a microsociological point of view. It is these mental or subjective phenomena that mediate the behavior of the individual actor. This flowering of mentation is held to be the result of an interplay of cognitive and affective processes. As such, although microsociologists differentiate theoretically between cognition and affect (e.g. Stryker 1991, Heise 1991), they need not be treated as mutually exclusive and the development of the mind is treated as a simultaneous orchestration of cognition and affect. Thus, my microsociological approach to Autism will begin with the assumption that both cognitive and affective impairments are implicated in the development of Autism, and that to understand how these processes are impaired we must first explicate the underlying logical dynamics of the mind. Symbolic interactionism is the foundation framework of microsociology which seeks to interpret and expand upon the writings of pragmatists like Pierce and Mead (Blumer 1969; Stryker 1980) as well as other traditions of social philosophy. The literature of symbolic interactionism is rich in its description of the nuances of conversational interaction and the way they engender the mental phenomena that mediate behavior. Of particular importance is the qualification of interpenetrative interaction (Cottrell 1942, 1978). This concept smacks of the "theory of mind" in that it addresses the notion that two individuals involved in conversational interaction must each role-take in order to see themselves through each others' eyes, and gauge subsequent behavior accordingly. Thus, each individual not only attends to the actions of self, but also to the responses of the other. This dynamic leads to a kind of double-conditioning (Cottrell 1942, 1978) wherein actors not only assimilate and accommodate their own actions but, in fact, do so explicitly in relation to the coterminous responses of others. This is reinforced through a layering of experience over successive interactions such that individual actors learn to formulate expectations for behavior of self and others in almost any social event based upon their personal history of social experience. These ideas suggest a dual-aspected activity of the individual in conversational interaction: the individual must simultaneously process incoming information from others in a meaningful way, as well as strategize the outgoing presentation of self in a meaningful way (Burke 1962). To this extent the individual actor can indeed be treated dramaturgically as an actor perpetually involved in managing the impression that is given off to others actors (Goffman 1959). Impression management is thus a core strategy in the presentation of self. Impression management belies the aggressive nature of social interaction. Individual actors must be committed to navigating social interaction and upholding the expectations and the face of others (Goffman 1955), even to the point of using impression management to effect strategies for interactional success. This commitment to social life is relatively taken for granted, but only to the extent that individuals are thoroughly socialized into regulating their affective and behavioral responses in social interaction (Heise 1977, 1987, 1992). It is precisely its taken for granted nature that belies the power of social life. The commitment to social life ensures the individual actor's ability to be seen as normal, and to subscribe to commonsense, thus rescuing the individual from absurdity (Lyman and Scott 1970) and wrapping the individual in the socially constructed security blanket of a meaningful normative reality. Now we have before us an image of the social nature of self. We see self as the result of mind achieving distance and perspective on itself as a social object (Mead 1934). Self is a process of responding to, and managing impressions for, others in interaction (Goffman 1959). Thus, all motives for action are shaped through socially imputed vocabularies of motive (Mills 1940). And furthermore, we see the microsociological perspective as a commitment to the explication of specific underlying logical dynamics which articulate the means whereby meaning and mind perpetuate themselves over time by constructing language, selves, and emotions. The conceptualization of logical dynamics underlying interpretive mental activity, along with a wealth of microsociological literature, indicates we can posit five fundamental components of conversational interaction. (1) The defined situation (see Thomas 1937; Goffman 1959, 1974): upon entering a conversational interaction the individual actor must put forth a hypothesis of what is taking place. (2) The situational identities (see Stryker 1987, Alexander and Wiley 1981): upon entering a conversational interaction the individual actor must put forth a hypothesis of who is participating. (3) Taking the role of the other, or role-taking (see Mead 1934, Stryker 1957, Turner 1978): upon entering a conversational interaction the individual actor must see her/himself through the eyes of the others in the interaction and gauge expectations for behavior of self and others accordingly. (4) Interpretive procedures (Garfinkle 1967; Cicourel 1974): in microsociology the framework of ethnomethodology, as derived from social phenomenology (Schutz 1945) posits that upon entering a conversational interaction the individual actor must invoke social assumptions of normalcy including the assumption that others will behave reciprocally and as expected, and that any meaning which is ambiguous in the present will either be immanently explained or is not critical anyway. These assumptions are invoked by actors in order to ensure meaningful communication in social interaction. Interpretive procedures are actually inductive procedures that individuals rely upon in the negotiation of every interaction. Without these assumptions of normalcy individuals would be like corks wafting on the ocean of social processes - never certain of what will come next, never precise about the meaning of anything, and never sure of how others are perceiving shared social encounters. (5) The actual interactive behavior itself. The arena we address is no less than the beginning of the social sciences, for the social sciences can be said to begin with the study of human behavior that is mediated by meaningful perception. It is the realization of meaning that is directly responsible for the faculty of mind. The genesis of meaning begets the genesis of language which supports the individual's ability to achieve reflexivity, or self-awareness. This takes place specifically through the linguistic component of pronomial usage. Mead (1934) used the concepts of the I and ME referring to I and ME consciousness which is possible because of language or significant symbols. For example, the sentence 'How will they look at me?' exemplifies the linguistic beginnings of role-taking and ME consciousness. Grammatically speaking, they is the subject and me is the direct object, and this kind of thinking would represent Mead's use of ME which marks the beginning of the objectification of self (as an I). According to Mead, one must first perform role-taking before being able to think reflexively. First, you see yourself as that which is an object to others, second you see yourself as that which is an object to itself. A. How will they look at me? -> Role-taking precedes and enables B. How will I look at myself? -> Reflexivity The progression from sentence A to sentence B constitutes the genesis of self using the concepts of I/ME consciousness. Thus, through the progression of role-taking to reflexivity ME consciousness engenders MYSELF consciousness. Pronomial usage serves to create social coordinates in social space. And it is the ability to cognize symbols which serve as social coordinates that allows the individual actor to cognitively suspend the parameters of those social coordinates in order to reinterpret and generalize the assignment of those social coordinates thus enabling the development of mind and self as we know it. Specifically, it is the mind's awareness of others, and the mind's ability to see itself as an other, that endows pronouns with their meaning and paves the way for the development of self. So, individual actors employ pronouns to symbolize their objectifications of the social world. "Me" and "You" are objectified through the mind's cognition of an other; e.g. 'What will you think about me?'. "I" and "Myself" are objectified through the mind's cognition of the body as an other to itself; e.g. 'What will I think about myself?'. "She/Her" and "He/Him" are objectified through the mind's cognition of an other to others ('What will you think about her/im?'). In these terms, we can treat self is that which is an object to itself (Mead 1934), or that which is an other to itself. Clearly, the development of self is contingent on the development of linguistic, cognitive, and emotional faculties of the mind - all of which hinge on the realization of meaning. Thus I conclude that an understanding of meaning must be central to an understanding of mind, self, language and emotions. It is the ability of the brain to support the activity of subjectively organizing meaning which underlies the concomitant development of mental phenomena. The Logical Inference Theory of Meaning I developed logical inference theory (Durig 1992) for my dissertation in the sociology department at Indiana University. It is the first formal theory of what meaning is and how it is organized in conversational interaction. I will now briefly relay the basic tenets of 'meaning as logical inference'. Meaning exists on two levels: (1) the interpersonal level, and, (2) the trans-situational level. The interpersonal level refers to a single face-to-face social interaction. The trans-situational level refers to the actual fact of individuals actors perpetually transcending successive interpersonal interactions as they move through time and space. On the interpersonal level we can describe the genesis of meaning as entailed in the transformation from gestures to significant symbols. It is because of a shared history in an interpersonal interaction that a gesture first becomes a significant symbol. Recall that the essence of this interpersonal level of meaning is captured in the phrase 'the meaning is in the response'. This view of meaning is predicated on the notion that meaning is shared by individuals such that meaningful symbols call out a predictable response in others. To say that the meaning is in the response is to say that a meaningful symbol entails predictable implications to an actor for its use in social experience. In other words, the meaning of a symbolic phenomenon to an actor is the implication of the symbolic phenomenon in the actor's social experience. Thus, the fundamental quality of interpersonal meaning is implication. This concept of implication is also entailed in the form of the logical conditional, or if-then statement. This is preliminary indication of the logical nature of meaning. On the trans-situational level we can describe the subjective organization of trans-situational meaning as the means whereby socially constructed symbols are perpetually organized in relation to the emergent here-and-now. The crucial question becomes: What is the fundamental quality of the subjective organization of trans-situational meaning? We can address the fundamental quality of the subjective organization of trans-situational meaning in the following manner: As the individual transcends successive social events, s/he must continually infer the implications of symbolic phenomena relative to each social event. Thus, acts of inference link interpersonal meanings across time and space, and we can say that the act of inference is the fundamental quality of the subjective organization of trans-situational meaning. And there are three modes of inference as described in the literature of the philosophy of science dating back to Pierce: (1) deduction, (2) induction, and, (3) abduction. Now we can state that the logical dynamics of implication and inference are endemic to the social construction of meaning. The Logic of Subjective Processes The logical inference framework is characterized by its attention to subjective processes - the actual behavior itself is but one component of the conversational interaction, and it is treated as the result of the interplay of subjective processes. Proceeding from contemporary premises, I apply principles of logic to contemporary microsociological theory. My claim is that actors act as if they use an underlying logic in assigning meaning to social interaction. Specifically, I argue that the three modes of inference in logic - induction, deduction, and abduction - are recapitulated in the individual cognitive processes upholding any meaningful social interaction, and that the social construction of new meanings, and ultimately culture, involves abduction. These conceptualizations are virtually implicit throughout much of sociology. A notable example of the sociological sense of logical inference can be found in the seminal work of Thomas Fararo and John Skvoretz (1984, 1986) wherein social institutions are conceptualized as production systems. As such, upon entering institutionalized settings actors identify a set of actions and their hierarchical ordering and proceed to invoke the rule- based system of activity, thus generating behavior. By implication, therefore, upon entering institutionalized settings actors inductively identify the system of activity, and proceed to deduce expected grammars of behavior. The logical inference framework seeks to render these implicit conceptualizations of the role of inference as explicit and formal theoretical concepts. Three Modes of Inference We can conceive of each of the three modes of inference in two senses. One sense is the formal syllogistic representation. The other is the social analogue to the syllogistic dynamic. (Incidentally, logical inference theory stipulates that our academic notions of logical inference and statistics are in fact formalized concepts derived directly on the basis of our everyday experience in conversational interaction). The concept of logical inference in formal logic pertains to issues of form not content. So it may appear strange to refer to logical inference as a means of deriving the meaningful content of perception. However, the development of this framework will include the forms in which logical inference are used to frame situations with meaning, as well as discussion of the claim that it is the imposition of these forms of logical inference which ultimately yields meaningful content in our perception. I will now briefly discuss the sociological aspects of the three modes of inference as they apply to the subjective organization of trans-situational meaning. Logical inference theory claims that the five components of conversational interaction are interrelated through the three modes of inference (see Table #1). Table #1 here Deduction is defined as a form of reasoning which is based on premises that are known to be either true or false (Hanson 1961). The form of reasoning is from specific premises to specific conclusions. The premises for a deduction provide conclusive grounds for its conclusion (Copi and Cohen 1986). For example, in demography the change in a closed population between two points in time, ceterus paribus, is deduced by adding the birth rate and subtracting the mortality rate. The figures are assumed to be true, and the inference yields guaranteed results. According to Nidditch (1960), induction is a form of systematic reasoning that seeks to establish generalizable relationships between concepts. The form of reasoning is from specific premises to general conclusions. Generally speaking, induction is the basis of research methods in science. A scientific project begins with a hypothesis and accumulates facts which allow one to induce the truth of the hypothesis. The approach never has guaranteed results, but the method seems to make sense because it works. The premises of the induction provide some support for the conclusion (Copi and Cohen 121-22986). So, induction is the process of proposing a hypothesis, then seeking facts in support of that hypothesis. In social interaction, individuals use induction to make inferences about relationships between self and social circumstances; specifically, to infer working definitions of the situation (Thomas 1937) and the situational identities (Alexander and Wiley 1981) in that situation. Induction is also relevant to Mead's (1934) concept of taking the role of the other, or role-taking, which exemplifies the manner in which individuals typically anticipate the normal responses of others. Consequently, actors will gauge their behavior in accordance with induced role-taking assumptions. The interpretive procedures, or social assumptions of normalcy, are also inductive procedures. These are essentially inductions consisting of hypotheses which assert that others will, for example, see the situation as we do, or clarify ambiguous information at some time in the future. We then seek confirmation for these hypotheses throughout the ensuing interaction. Consider the opposing circumstance: if the progression of every turn, move or utterance in interaction was contingent upon establishing complete or perfect understanding by others on a conscious level without subscribing to these inductive assumptions, then interaction would come to a halt (Grimshaw 1989). Sociologically speaking, deductive reasoning is employed to derive expected behaviors as they ensue from the hypothetical defined situations, situational identities, and role-takings, and interpretive procedures. Peirce discussed the manner in which we reasonably deduce the expectations for behavior of others on the basis of their perceived identities (see Peirce 1940, p. 153, for a sociological example of deduction). The deductions ensue from the assumption that induced situations and identities are true and real, and thus others' true and real identities imply standard role behaviors as defined by if-then rules about action. Thus, it is the interplay of inductions and deductions that generates behavior in social interaction. We draw on past experience, assume our perception is correct, and proceed to deduce expectations for behavior of self and others. Abduction is the attempt to impose order on a meaningless or inconsistent situation. The form of reasoning is from general premises to specific conclusions. While abduction does not necessarily yield truth (nor does induction), it offers a theory of the facts that is at least plausible with respect to past experience and future expectations (see Peirce 1940: 151, 304 for his explanation of abduction, 1960-66; Hanson 1961; Durbin 1968; Smokler 1968; Niniiluoto and Tuomela 1973; for an excellent discussion of Peirce's conceptualization of abduction see P.H. Nidditch 1960, pp. 314- 19). When current knowledge is insufficient in explaining an event, abduction is performed as a retrospective reorganization of existing experience in an attempt to logically reconstruct our perception of events. If "Logical conduct is...conduct which aims to remove ambiguity" (Moore 1917, p. 86), then abduction is justified as a logical form of inference inasmuch as it is an attempt to reformulate existing knowledge and experience in order to innovate explanations that remove ambiguity and allow one to discern meaning. Thus, abduction is invoked on either the deductive or the inductive level (1) whenever new meanings are realized, (2) to resolve ambiguities and inconsistencies in interaction, and, (3) to engage in creative, innovative action. Social life does not take place in discrete, neat, packagable units. Individual experience in social interaction is more a continuum of defined situations, situational identities, role-takings, interpretive procedures, and behaviors stretching over the life course. As we see how this continuum of experience is organized we get a handle on the individual's organization of meaning. However, the logical inference framework is not intended to account for all the activities of individuals in interaction. In particular, Garfinkle (1967) has promoted a concern for the common-sense processes individuals employ in upholding social interaction. Ethnomethodology emphasizes the notion that individuals do not consciously employ principles of logical inference in preparing for social interaction, they rely on implicit assumptions of normalcy. And yet, I am arguing that there is a logic which coordinates commonsensical perception and actual behavior. Goffman is notable in this regard for the efforts he makes to describe the give and take of interaction as something sublime and fluid that can not be arbitrarily reduced to syllogistic derivations. In fact, it is Goffman's (1974) conceptualization of frames that is most applicable to the logical inference model. The sequencing of logical inferences actually addresses the derivation of frames for perception and behavior. Actors perform induction to frame their subjective definition of social situations. They perform deduction to frame their expectations for behavior of self and others in those situations. And they perform abduction to frame subjective perceptions and expectations for behavior in meaningless or inconsistent situations. Once the inductions are performed, actors may move about mentally in that subjective terrain in ways that may not necessarily be logical or rational. Once deductions are performed, they may likewise behave in ways that may not necessarily be logical or rational. But, even treating inductions and deductions as inferences yielding conclusions that are actually frames does not address creativity and innovation. We need something else. As long as actors can make acceptable inductions and deductions they will achieve a closure in their meaningful perception of a social interaction. But, when inconsistency threatens that closure, actors must reorganize existing knowledge and abduct pieces of earlier experiences of such closure in meaning to achieve a new closure in meaningful perception that did not previously exist in the individual's experience. Consequently, we arrive at a view of creativity with respect to mind, and with respect to culture, as the rational reorganization of existing symbolic conceptualizations of events. I would like to briefly address the notion that each mode of inference is imbued with certain characteristics. The following table lists these by category. Table #2 here I developed the logical inference framework in order to initiate a theoretical research program into the microsociology of meaning. Logical inference theory has already supported an operationalization yielding a formal theoretical model along with testable hypotheses. Laboratory experimentation yielded data in support of the hypotheses tested as well as suggesting revisions of the fundamental propositions of the formalized framework (Durig 1992). The application of logical inference theory to Autism indicates that the theoretical research program has been enlivened on the levels of theory, research, and now, applications. The Logical Inference Theory of Autism If the above assumptions are correct then the brain must provide the setting wherein a neurological architecture is erected and developed which supports the activities of the deductive, inductive, and abductive processes underlying the socially constructed phenomena of meaning, mind, language, self, and emotions. The application of logical inference theory to Autism suggests that Autism is the result of an impairment in the brain's regulation of the inferencing processes such that the likelihood of each mode of inference being invoked and sustained, and the level of sensory information processing available at each mode of inference is imbalanced. This imbalance favors the levels of deductive and abductive competence, while reducing inductive competence to the point of being null. The faculties of induction may be undeveloped completely in people with Autism. But given the fact that at least some people with Autism develop inductive faculties to some degree it seems plausible that a control system which regulates inferencing processes may in fact be covering or masking a normative faculty for invoking the three modes of inference, thus forcing the individual to favor the deductive and abductive processes and rendering the individual unable to access the inductive processes. In other words, there may be an person with Autism with intact normative brain faculties which support all three modes of inference, but such a control system might only be allowing the individual to invoke and sustain deductive and abductive processes exclusive of the inductive processes. I now return to the over-arching characteristics of Autism in order to subsequently discuss the relevance of logical inference theory for explicating the classic characteristics of Autism. I will specifically discuss the manner in which exclusion of inductive inferencing processes in meaningful perception can be seen as sufficient to explain the characteristics of Autism. Thus the five classic characteristics of Autism and their microsociological explanations are: (1) Impaired Social Relationships As indicated in Table #1, all the subjective components necessary for the individual actor to anticipate, define, and interpret normative conversational interaction are inductive processes. In other words, people with Autism can not subjectively organize trans-situational. Therefore, they can not experience mind, meaning, language, self, or emotions the way most individuals do. Furthermore, it also implies that the person with Autism's experience of these phenomena exists on a deductive, interpersonal level. Thus, an understanding of Autism, will shed light on the distinction between inductive faculties and deductive faculties, because they only exhibit deductive and abductive mind - no inductive mind. At worst, the stress of direct, emotionally loaded communication either blocks the brain's ability to retrieve all or any words needed to speak a fluent sentence or won't allow the process of articulation to begin, leaving the words echoing within the speaker's head. The frustration of this can lead, as I described, to the deafening scream of frustration that may not get out of the speaker's mouth (208). (2) Impaired Communication (i.e., echolalia, distorted pronomial usage, lack of expressive gestures, difficulty with pragmatics including the altered tone of voice, the faraway look in the eyes, and walking on tip-toes) Echolalia is explained by the lack of ability to perform the inductive processes of role-taking. The syntactic, or deductive, rules of turn-taking in conversation (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1978) are grasped, but the inability to interpret and project the expectations of others and gauge action accordingly leaves the person with Autism with no way of competently inferring how to respond meaningfully to conversational interaction. Thus, the most readily available way to take one's turn in conversational interaction is to echo the last utterance. Distorted pronomial usage is also attributable to an inability to do role- taking, an inductive inferencing process. Since pronomial usage is developed through inductive inference, the person with Autism is literally incapable of achieving self as we know it because the person with Autism can not interpolate awareness so as to reverse the general awareness of self and others and become a social object to oneself as seen by others. So when the person with Autism sees her/himself s/he does not even know it. This explains their difficulty in interpreting their own mirror image. When the person with Autism approaches self it is a strange charade in which the mind apprehends role-identities for functional purposes based on past experience: but the person with Autism can never identify with anyone because that is also an interpretive act. Thus people with Autism simulate self by crafting and posing as various persona they have either abduced or actually known in order to be able to negotiate trans-situational interaction, but they are really more haunted by self and what self implies than we can imagine, and they likely relish the absence of self, as it implies the absence of others and the need to rise to their expectations. An odd tone of voice, the faraway look in the eyes, walking on tip- toes, and various pragmatic difficulties are further expressions of the lack of inductive or interpretive cognition in people with Autism. The way we gauge our tone of voice, the way we focus our gaze, the way we walk, and the way we express ourselves are all tenuous emergent phenomena which are relative to our interpretation of the environment at any given time. The lack of experience in trans-situational meaning is directly responsible for the inability to regulate voice, walk, gaze, and pragmatics to meet the emergent needs of the trans-situational level of action. I had trouble with words, but this wasn't due to disordered thinking, and I never jumbled them up like a tossed salad. I either spoke them as emotionlessly mimicked repetitions of what other people had said used a strange accent, stuttered, or found myself unable mentally to form the words to speak at all. All of these problems were due to fear of the overwhelming intensity of my very untouched emotions (138). (3) Impaired Make-Believe Play The ability to participate in play and games involves inductive faculties. This is because one must be able to role-take in order to assume team membership and appreciate the concepts of winning and losing. Microsociology treats childrens' play as the reconstruction of social life, and an important part of childhood socialization (Corsaro 1981, 1985, 1988, 1992). These interpretive and constructive dynamics of play activity are foreign to the Autistic child. I'd be out in the playground enjoying myself. It seemed quite natural to me that if I did not like something I could find a way to avoid it. Looking back, I can imagine how strange it was for my teacher to be called out to the playground as one of her pupils was swinging and singing "On Top of the World" as I hung by my knees from the top of one of the school's highest trees (24). (4) Peculiar Pattern of Intellectual Abilities Consider the notion that the Autistic mind operates on the level of deductive inference, along with abductive inference on a deductive level, and does not invoke inductive inferencing (see Table #2). It becomes apparent that all of the intellectual abilities of people with Autism are classifiable as deductive and/or abductive phenomena. Deductive intellectual activities will involve if-then rules for sequencing activity, e.g. 'First do this, then do that, then do this, then do that'. Deductive activities will include activities that are rote and repetitive and routinized to such an extent that they have guaranteed outcomes, e.g. numerical calculation, collecting objects, and memorization. Deductive activities will be characterized by a direct mapping of one experience to another, e.g. listening to music and then playing what was heard, looking at a building and then drawing what was seen. Abductive activities involve creativity and innovation, e.g. classifying and categorizing, composing music and writing poetry. Thus the people with Autism' patterns of intellectual activity can be explained through an understanding of the modes of inference. The wait for my allowance had one saving grace. I had, with the back payments of my allowance, bought myself an old piano. I learned to love and live for the time spent with my piano. I began to write music straight away with relative ease, but learned truly to express my feelings through creation and playing of my own music. At first I wrote classical music. I could not read sheet music, so I could not as yet write my music down on paper properly. I had simply to remember my pieces, which usually sufficed. As these pieces became more complex, I developed a strategy of writing down timing using a series of dots and dashes of differing lengths, and learned to write the pitch over these dots and dashes using their letter names and arrows showing whether they went up or down in pitch. Eventually I brought home some music theory books and taught myself a bit about standard notation though largely I still relied upon my own system (126-127). (5) The Repetitive Phenomena of Rituals This is perhaps the most elusive characteristic of Autism. Various understandings of affect and cognition can compassionately assess the person with Autism's impairments regarding conversational interaction, but how do we logically relate these anomalies to the eccentric predilection toward repetitive behavior evidenced in people with Autism? The answer lies in the very notion of what it means to say that one has a mind and experiences meaningful perception. Since people with Autism can experience meaning through their abductive faculties they can achieve a mind of their own, but self must come with slow development and effort in those able to attempt it. People with Autism can experience mind and meaning with virtually no self, inasmuch as self is that which one presents to others in conversational interaction. In fact, the name Autism itself is less applicable as a reference to retreating into the vast aloneness of self, and more applicable as a reference to the automatic performance of productive routines. Although these routines may not always seem productive to 'outsiders', I will argue that at the very least they produce stability and a subjective sense of mental security for people with Autism. Clearly, in humans overall, the existence of the cognitive processes of meaning and mind suggests some kind of patterned activity which is relatively stable or repetitive or reconstructive over time. There would be no basis for laying claim to a science of microsociology if that were not the case. In fact, microsociological research has demonstrated that we actively reconstruct mind, self and role-identities for the purpose of regulating, controlling, and stabilizing our subjective mental experience such that it is relatively constant over time, including times of transition, with respect to group membership and daily activities (Stryker 1980, 1987,1991). Since the person with Autism can not invoke normative inductive procedures to complete the development of self, the patterned and stabilizing activities of self and the interpretive mind (e.g. normative peer interaction) are replaced with the patterned and stabilizing activities of a mind without meaningful perception as we know it, and characterized almost completely by deductive thinking (as well as abductive thinking on the deductive level). Meaningful perception without induction means the mind has to find ways of repeating itself in order to experience itself as stable which exist on the deductive level. Thus, for people with Autism, repetitive motions are actually one way of experiencing sanity. In other words, these routines are critical to the mental health of the person with Autism, and repetitive motion is therefore probably one of the most intimate and comforting mental experiences available to people with Autism. Conversely, if affect is also relegated along with cognition in this fashion, then it makes sense that the response to emotional conflict is to engage in violent or aggressive or crude repetitive behavior: this is meaningful defiance. This, of course, may be especially true when the conflict centers around an attempt to halt a repetitive motion the person with Autism may have been enjoying in the first place. 3. Patterns Continuity. The reassurance that things will stay the same long enough to grasp an undeniable guaranteed place within the complex situation around me (212). By introducing concepts from microsociology I have built up my argument for explaining the five classic characteristics of Autism. Now I would like to begin closing my arguments by indicating how I believe a spiraling of renewed understanding may take place wherein microsociologists, Autism researchers, and people with Autism renew understanding of themselves by furthering their understanding of each other. The Autistic State of Mind People with Autism would be better off if they were not faced with insensitive demands from normative conversational interaction. We need to appreciate the Autistic state of mind in order to be able to work with it. Microsociological theory should be able to aid those who work with people with Autism in distinguishing the inductive from the deductive aspects of participation in daily life. Ultimately we should reduce inductive thinking to deductive thinking in preparation for the person with Autism's engagement with normative culture. In addressing the subjective logic of individual perception, Peirce emphasized the concept of habit which he defined as a rule of action (Peirce 1940:28). The nature of culture is likewise understood in terms of living habits. Culture is thus conceived as rules for social action and the material means for implementing the rules. Culture is a primary frame that is co- constructed by actors wherein they can each frame their own experiences in interaction (Goffman 1974). From a microsociological perspective, we can treat culture as being defined largely in terms of routines (Corsaro 1981, 1985, 1988, 1992; Corsaro and Heise 1990) and grammars of action (Heise and Durig 1991). The concept of routines of action resonates with Peirce's living habits. It also resonates with the concept of production systems: grammars of productive social action which are invoked and upheld by the cooperative activity of individuals (Fararo and Skvoretz 1984, 1986). Culture consists of shared, intersubjective knowledge about objects and events. Thus culture can be conceived as the routines and grammars of action which create semiotic links among individuals. Culture can be considered a social phenomenon which promotes problem-solving knowledge and logical interrelationships among objects. Given that culture is co-constructed by individual actors through conversational interaction it is evident that such interpretive and inductive sequences of behavior would exclude people with Autism from participating in normative culture. People with Autism would be better off if we would grammarize our daily lives for them - that is, reduce our daily lives to a series of deductive grammars of action that they could then memorize. Nancy Dalrymple (1991) refers to such an educational aid as a contingency: i.e. 'first do this, then do that'. And microsociological theory supports the notion that our entire lives can be reduced to such contingencies, or grammars of action. By reducing daily life to a series of if-then rules for action, we could program what to do or whom to call in the event of change or inconsistency. Given the memory capacities of many people with Autism, the prospect of memorizing extensive grammars of action may not be entirely problematic. Indeed the prospect of reducing daily life to a structured set of grammars of action will likely be a fascinating enterprise to some people with Autism who are so motivated to understand and participate in the normative world of conversational interaction (I should mention that I am speaking to the more developed end of the spectrum). By making conscious allowances for their perspective I have every reason to believe many people with Autism could perform almost any kind of highly routinized work, including using computers and even computer programming. This is because the very nature of computers is completely based on deductive logic. The extent to which we succeed will be determined by the motivation and developmental ability of the participating people with Autism, the success we have in reducing inductive logics of action to deductive grammars of action, and the success we have in developing teaching methods for people with Autism. To this last point, it seems that people with Autism would learn more easily sitting at a computer programmed to allow one to cover deductive grammars of action at one's own pace, for example, than from a teacher. In my first three years in the special class at primary school, the teacher often left the room and the pupils responded to the lessons broadcast through an overhead speaker. I remember responding to it without the distraction of coping with the teacher. In this sense, computers would probably be beneficial for Autistic children once they had the skills to use one (208). Indeed the inability to perform role-taking and achieve self as we know it implies the person with Autism can not see her\himself as an object to her\himself. This accounts for the boundarilessness experienced, the out- of-body perspective, and even the difficulty with toilet training (Bettelheim 1967). In fact, the person with Autism lives in a world of mental one- pointedness and is jarred by the social world of interpretation. Their life of the mind is a transcendental experience in which they can not identify with others or with themselves. For people with Autism, self is a crutch. The process of taking on self is artificially constructed, as opposed to being socially constructed through normative experience (Bettelheim 1967). Although the artificial construction of self is and can only be a response to the demands of social life, in Autism it is nevertheless a case of a mind pretending to be another person because that person was seen to be successful in the normative world. That is the closest people with Autism get to self and identification. People with Autism have to condescend to take into account our world. Because people with Autism live in mind and meaning beyond social interpretation, the social world of self and other selves is an intrusion. In the social world approached through inductive inference, the demand to respond meaningfully to others is all-important. Therefore, the inability for people with Autism to formulate appropriate responses in normative conversational interaction implies that love and other socially constructed emotions can only be experienced by people with Autism to the extent that we support, glorify, and respect their position in "their" world thus allowing them security. In microsociology we talk about the looking-glass self (Cooley 1902). Each is to the other a looking-glass. Furthermore, we all are most comfortable when we share social space with others who act as a looking- glass for us, that is, we like to see ourselves in others because it serves as patterned, stabilizing, confirmation of self. People with Autism have trouble interpreting their own reflection in a mirror. Conclusion I have outlined a set of theoretical conceptualizations toward establishing a microsociology of Autism. The logical inference theory of Autism brings a microsociological perspective to bear on Autism, one which is capable of addressing the five classic characteristics of Autism. By presenting leading edge microsociological theory dovetailed with self-reports from Donna Williams, I have argued that people with Autism, Autism researchers, and microsociologists have much to learn from one another, and that it is high-time a cross-fertilization of perspectives take place. Microsociology offers a complete storehouse of knowledge about conversational interaction which is directly applicable to the study of Autism. Microsociology is thus capable of offering Autism researchers a vocabulary with which to adequately capture many understandings which are being apprehended, while not being totally expressible given the existing theoretical armamentarium. We have been influenced by people with Autism. 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Table #1 The Interrelation of the Three Modes of Inference and the Five Components of Conversational Interaction Deduction Induction Abduction Defined Situation; Situational Identities; Role-Taking; Interpretive Procedures Expectations for Behavior of Self and Others Creativity; Innovation in the Face of Ambiguity Table #2 Qualifying the Three Modes of Inference DEDUCTION INDUCTION ABDUCTION ASPECT Concrete Abstract Both Either/Or LEVEL OF INTERACTION Interpersonal Trans-Situational Both Either/Or UTILITY Automate Productive Action Generalize Meaning Realize Meaning GRAMMATICAL QUALITY Syntax Semantics Both Either/Or RESULT Routinization Interpretation Innovation