I spoke with autism researcher Professor Anna Remington, Director of CRAE at UCL, about the notion of 'perceptual capacity'. The discussion covered what perceptual capacity is, its significance to neurodivergent people (spoiler: many autistic people have a high perceptual capacity), and how understanding and working with one's perceptual capacity can help improve effectiveness and mitigate challenges associated with increased sensory sensitivities. Chapters and links are below.

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Chapters:

00:00 Coming up

01:00 Episode intro

05:05 Introduction to Anna, and the work CRAE does

06:05 What is perceptual capacity and how does it relate to neurodivergence?

15:15 Finding the right level of sensory input for individuals

17:54 Individuals and employers recognising benefits of increased perceptual capacity

20:29 Identifying the type of work that suits one’s perceptual capacity

23:20 Perceptual Capacity is a cognitive function

25:09 What’s being done to increase awareness of perceptual capacity?

29:46 Challenges with a high perceptual capacity in work

30:58 Advantages to having a higher perceptual capacity in work

32:33 What might one look for in a job listing that suits high perceptual capacity?

36:42 Load theory and the road to understanding perceptual capacity

40:01 Can one control the extent of their perceptual capacity?

41:55 How does perceptual capacity relate to flow?

42:55 Can shifts in language change how society views differences?

45:40 Might perceptual capacity become a way to speak more accurately to experience?

52:41 Episode outro

Links:

‘A storm of post-it notes’: Experiences of perceptual capacity in autism and ADHD: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187561/

Anxiety overrides the blocking effects of high perceptual load on amygdala reactivity to threat-related distractors: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21376745/

Not so fast: Rethinking the effects of action video games on attentional capacity: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1742-9536.2011.00001.x

I can see clearly now: the effects of age and perceptual load on inattentional blindness: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00229/full

Load Theory & Perceptual Capacity Can Help You Work | Anna Remington