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eye to eye contact - is it different looking at photographs compared to face to face?

Phased

I have just been on my local autism services website to seek out an autism support worker.

The people who fulfill this role are all shown in full face photos staring and smiling, I believe confidently, directly into the camera lens.

Speaking personally I found this a bit intimidating and I wondered whether this was just the stress of thinking about meeting one or whether it was caused by the eye to eye contact in their pictures.  I really couldn't tell although I did think "oh I hope that not that one" to start with.  Then I took a closer look when my eyes seemed to look at the photo differently and my opinion changed..." .

Combination of the 2 and sensory overload maybe?

When stressed even a friendly face can be just too much to deal with?

I have looked it up and academically it seems there are studies where autistic people might process static images of people differently to literally being face to face with them.

Just can't work it out myself at present and asking family at home would probably just confuse the heck out of things.

So I thought I'd ask how other people in this community would get on with this.

Comments anyone please?

Grinning   hehe - Smiley eyes open emoji, ah the irony...

Parents

  • I do eye contact consciously, I time it. I don't do it in the way allistics do, but it does not cause me much in the way of distress. I do it because it seems to grease the wheels in conversations with allistic people. The only discomfort I feel is when my concentration on the timing of eye contact distracts me from being able to follow what the other person is saying. As a corollary, photos of people looking directly into the camera cause me no distress at all.

  • in reply to Martin

    sounds like it takes a lot of effort to do the eye to eye thing face to face for you that distracts from focus on what they are saying maybe

  • in reply to Phased

    It is usually that I'm doing my normal timing and occasionally I become momentarily more intrusively aware of doing it than normal, or self-conscious about it, and it throws me off

  • in reply to Damojo

    oh blimey - unti I spotted the wink emoticon I was worried you didn't think of yourself as  real  ?  oo - maybe I'm not either!!!Grimacing 

    (hehe that wink was hard to spot at a distance - maybe we should switch to opera!)

    I'm reminded of this:  "The phrase "Am I a man dreaming I'm a butterfly?" comes from a famous story by the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, who questioned whether he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man."

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  • in reply to Damojo

    oh blimey - unti I spotted the wink emoticon I was worried you didn't think of yourself as  real  ?  oo - maybe I'm not either!!!Grimacing 

    (hehe that wink was hard to spot at a distance - maybe we should switch to opera!)

    I'm reminded of this:  "The phrase "Am I a man dreaming I'm a butterfly?" comes from a famous story by the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, who questioned whether he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man."

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