Psychometrics (game on!)

Ok, this is just a game (at least all winners, not all being equal).

Every waking hour (GMT and lazy me), I will post a question. I'd like you refrain from answering until I've asked all questions (I will tell you when I've finished).

The game element is that inter-rater reliability (the concordance between your answers and those of others) and your own answers will (hopefully) tell you how normal you are autism-wise. I'd say that abnormality makes you a winner, but it might be that normalcy is something that makes you a winner in your eyes.

Please try to answer as honestly as possible. You can't lose, either way.

To add a game element: you may give a prediction of the mean scores for all questions. I will first let you know when I've asked all questions and 24 hours after that I will ask you to give your own—honest—answers/scores. You may also predict how questions relate/correlate: either inverse, no or normal correlation (internal consistency or in(ter)dependence; extra points!). Game scores depend on how many degrees you're off: 8 minus that number/degree.

To add yet another game element, I challenge everyone to come up with her/his own questions and via the same procedure we may continue the game. Two rankings are finally made (if anyone takes me up on the challenge).

If there are any questions about any of this, please let me know.

Questions have to answered/scored as follows:

On a scale from 1 to 8 (not at all – very), compared to most other people (so not just those with an autism spectrum disorder: anyone):

Icare_1) how important do you find routine?

(I prepended Icare_ so as to reduce the likelihood of confusion if others have a go at finding meaningful/useful questions).

Icare_2) how important do you find freedom?

Icare_3) how important do you find clarity?

I think I need some further explanation. This morning when I woke up, I felt like I never woke up totally and I think my comprehension is suffering, LOL.

No worries: I'll try to explain further.

Yes, it might seem a bit difficult with the statistics probably. The game elements really depend on some basic statistics. But let's take it one step at a time.

But all that is really required is both predicting the answers/scores that others might give (so most people), predicting how questions/answers interrelate (is there an inverse correlation, normal correlation or no correlation: does one score tell you anything about the chance of another answer, beyond "pure chance") answering/scoring the questions for yourself. Not yet, but predicting after I've posted all questions (there are 10).

The aim is to see whether we can come up with questions that are useful in distinguishing between groups of people (not just those with an autism spectrum disorder) with as few questions as possible. If the questions tell us something about more "essential" human characteristics, it might be fun to compare your scores with those of others.

The statistics (and predictions) will just be used later to see if the questions are indeed meaningful/useful. Individual game scores will depend on how well you predicted a certain answer.

So basically: two round, predicting and answering for yourself (24 hours for the first, prediction round).

If after those two rounds you think you can come up with more meaningful/useful questions, please ask them (via the same procedure). Statistics will tell us which questions are best.

Hope this helps to explain it.

Icare_4) how important do you find music?

One question - once all the questions are posted, how do we answer? Very few autists understand scales... Need a more definite way of answering :/

Ok, I will give descriptions for all points of the scale. Thanks for the advice: I'll try to elucidate.

Edit:
I will let you know before the end of the series of questions. In will also explain some other conditions for answering correctly (not during possible depression, and others).

Icare_5) how important do you find works of fiction?

Icare_6) how important do you find proof?

How to answer?
A stepwise procedure for answering and conditions or context:

Conditions:
- answer the questions from your experience without reference to periods of depression, unusually high anxiety or psychosis (including mania, if applicable) and not with reference to unusual outside circumstances;
- if your answer would be highly variable over time, even after considering the first condition, give an average/mean of all the scores/answers you could give, given your entire life thus far.

Steps to come to a score for each of the answers:
- start with 0 1 as your score;
- iff (only if) a question describes something that is more true for you than for most others, as far as you can tell, add 4 to your score;
- iff a question describes something that you find characteristic for you, add 2.
- iff a question describes something that you find more characteristic for you than most other characteristics you have, add 1.

If you feel you should deviate from this procedure to give a better, still more honest, answer, do so.

How to predict?

Conditions:
- all conditions previously mentioned apply;
- you predict what most other people with the same symptoms/syndrome/diagnosis as you would most likely answer, taking an average, as good as you can.

You may use the stepwise procedure for answering the questions for yourself, but applied not to yourself but to most of those that share your symptoms/syndrome, on average, as good as you can predict.

Icare_7) how easily are you distracted by things in your surroundings?

Icare_8) how easily are you distracted by new ideas?

Sorry for the delay. I will post the last two questions after the following:

How to predict correlations?
There many correlations possible (90 45), so you may just predict some. I will give you a weighed score based on the strength of the correlation (don't mind the statistics). The normal strength will get you 8 points. Weak correlations will mean less points, stronger more points.

For any correlation you want to describe, please use the following notation:

[Q] -> [Q], for a normal/positive correlation (if the one answer is an high number, it is likely that the other is high as well).

[Q] -< [Q], for an inverse/negative correlation (if the one has a high number, the other likely has a low number and vice versa).

[Q] >-< [Q], for no correlation (a "pure chance" that the one is similar or dissimilar to the other; purely random).

Where [Q] is something like Name_4 or Icare_7.

Answer notation
Please use something like the following to describe your answer:
QuestionnaireId_2: 6
QuestionnaireId_3: 3

The order of your answers matters not.

That's it!

Predictions can be posted beginning now until 24 48 hours later: same time day after tomorrow (based on the activity in this forum I have extended the prediction round a bit). The same questions will be answered by people with BP (or schizomania, such as I). I think it will be fun comparing answers between those with an ASD or psychotic disorder, because at some level these are two syndrome extremes: same qualities (as everyone, including what you tend to call neurotypicals I think, has) but some quantities really inverted. Some things where generally you are great at, we are very bad at and vice versa. Hopefully one or more of these questions are about those qualities (including interests).

Interested to see your predictions! I will post mine later today. You still have more than 12 hours at least (too lazy for such arithmetic).

Edit:
I mixed up causation and correlation there, giving the maximum number. Is that (imprecision; makeshift thinking) typical for BP and especially not ASD? Maybe.

Icare_9) how easily are you distracted by unwanted thoughts?
Icare_10) how normal would you consider yourself?

Those are all my questions. Hope some/many questions give interesting results. Prediction round ends in 48 hours. Please have your own answers ready to post at (exactly) that time.

I will post my own predictions tomorrow. It just became DST here or I would've done so today. Daylight Saving Time is a real problem for those with BP. For us, sleep routine/hygiene is very important because it can quickly escalate into chaotic sleeping patterns and other more typical symptoms of BP.

Is DST (and sleep hygiene) also such a problem for many/most with ASD/autism?

All I know is that sleep cycles are off (longer or shorter than a day) in both disorder spectrums.

The prediction round is extended by another 24 hours, totalling 72 hours (a few have already passed).

I'm sorry that I won't be answering the questionnaire - I would try but I have a lot of difficulty in understanding and the game is too much for me to figure out. But to answer the part about sleep - it's a big problem for me too, I keep to a very precise routine and my own sleep troubles mess it up and so make me very anxious and can lead to panic attacks and autism meltdowns+shutdowns. With my fibromyalgia, which autists are more susceptible to than NTs, the anxiety caused by the altered routine can cause severe pain and collapsing for me. With missed sleep I tend to cry a lot during the day from tiredness as well, and the stress from feeling tired then leads to more meltdowns.

I'm curious, I can't remember you mentioning it, are you yourself autistic, Icare dixit?

No I am not. I am bipolar myself. However, my father is to such extent (not really on the spectrum: luckily for him he has manageable anxiety, it has only affected others through his behaviour but not really so that he himself suffers or has severe problems) that he taught me to be very rational and rigorous, which is very different from "unaffected"/natural BP. Of course, underlyingly I very much am, but I try to offset these problems with things you are generally naturally good at.

Hope that answers your question.

Edit:
BP is just never fully "unaffected", for no-one: anxiety causes very creative and fast reasoning, but not very rigorous.

Another edit (yes I tend to do that and this is gonna be long! I am always a bit "manic", schizomanic and on not too many meds, please read further):
More specifically, I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. Or: schizomania.

I am a psycholinguist.

I live at the crossroads of BP and schizophrenia, I work at the crossroads of the humanities and liberal arts, and the sciences, BP and ASD.

Schizomania and ASD are sometimes very difficult to distinguish. That's why I created/develop this questionnaire (together with anyone who wants comes up with questions or wants to give predictions or personal answers).

Schizomania may be mistaken for ASD, autism for schizophrenia, and vice versa, respectively.

Delusions may be mistaken for an autistic perspective, pervasive interests for goal-directed activity, and vice versa, respectively.

More or less clear insight can be mistaken for both a pervasive interest and an autistic perspective and be regarded as a contraindication for a psychotic disorder.

The wrong diagnosis can delay proper treatment by years

Mostly just by lack of rigour in the description of the syndrome in the DSM, schizoaffective disorder can be diagnosed together with autism spectrum disorder. It is literally a combination of the descriptions of bipolar disorder and partially schizophrenia, but arguably too little of the latter.

A related problem is the controversy surrounding both schizoaffective disorder and (even) the dichotomy between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia (the "Kraepelinian dichotomy").

More and more, it becomes clear that there is so much overlap, both syndromal/clinically and genetically/biochemically, that it may be best considered as one category with as of yet unknown differences in expression and foundation.

I have developed a theory which can describe all disorders from ASD at one end of a continuum, through normalcy, the favourite of all disorders, to, what I call, the psychotic spectrum disorder(s).

I have been misdiagnosed with ASD (then PDD NOS).

I lost many chances, have had ideas of ending it or wishes it would end, many times.

What saved me was having enough insight together with a lot of knowledge.

Still I couldn't express myself clearly (this varies and is worst when I need to most, as is common), but my convictions weren't delusional, I kept them during times of depression, and in time I was able to prove it. It kept me going. It kept me alive.

Ironically, not being delusional brought me the treatment I needed, helping me to not be delusional (to the point it impairs my functioning).

But only after far too many years, I got that care.

Many of those with psychotic disorders have great insight—as in intuitively, but don't have the means to express them with the rigour suited to express such intense depth of impressions, many with ASD may have the means to do just that, but lack a suitable, intense, intuitive or emotional insight.

I know this is a lot of explanation for a simple question, but it very much goal-directed activity firstly, interest secondary. I wonder when this "mania" or "episode" ends.

If just one person reads an understands it, I am one step closer to my goal: freedom, acceptance, care and support, for all, basically.

Recursive correlation notation
To use a less fine-grained notation for correlations, you may treat [Q] to be either something like Prefix_5 or some of the correlation notation previously described, e.g.: [Q] -> [Q], but with the new, extended notation for [Q] as here described.

In other words, you may use it recursively, like with arithmetic or algebra (or formal logic), such as "4 + 3 * 2".

So you might reduce your correlation predictions to three formulae/"lines", to still describe all correlations. Just easier and it may give you time to describe some multivariate (the effect of a few answers taken together being as strong as another answer) correlations succinctly and more explicit (but you don't have to). You may (therefore) use brackets/parentheses.

A comma may be used to represent the operator used last ("->", "-<" or ">-<") with the preceding question identifier ([Q]), starting a new formula/rule.

Similarly, prefixes may be omitted: the prefix used last is implied. Both can be used with referents across formulae/rules/"lines".

One of the easiest possible examples is really very easy (some of this might sound as rocket science, which is not very dissimilar ):
"Icare_1 -> 2, 3, 4
5 -< 6, 7, 8
9 >-< 10" means that the first five answers are similar in "behaviour"/tendency, answers/scores 6, 7 and 8 have a "behaviour" opposed to answer/score 5 and answer 9 and 10 are as likely as not to show a(n) (inverse) correlation, their "behaviour" being predicted to be independent of one another.

As an alternative, you may just use natural language to describe all correlations. As a psycho linguist (space intended), I'd even prefer that (but don't be fooled, natural language can be more tricky than you think: very many have tried to capture it in rules and failed miserably, and all my life's research and work are in aid of solving that puzzle).

I am very much interested to see what people with BP and ASD, respectively, use as language of choice!

I will further post a rationale for this guessing game (it really has a purpose beyond the game aspect) and my own predictions.

Hope you can use my examples (I will give my predictions in both natural language and this notation) as enough information to just predict answers and give your own. I will further try to tell you why tomorrow, detailing the reasons behind this prediction (apart from possible fun, would you believe it).

Rationale behind predicting
Apart from maybe being fun and surprising (if enough people take part in such a prediction round), it also has value in creating better, more reliable and consistent questionnaires.

If I were to ask you "have you ever felt so agitated that you couldn't sit still or was overactive" or "have you ever taken risky chances you later regret", you might grab the DSM and look at the description of bipolar disorder and see "psychomotor agitation" and "excessive involvement in activities with the potential of painful consequences" or see these behavioural characteristics in friends or colleagues with BP, and having already made up your mind, you have should have little problem manipulating the test to get the "correct" results.

That is how many questionnaires are made: just questions that ask you about symptoms that are part of the syndrome—as described in e.g. the DSM. To increase possibilities for measuring if someone is just guessing or manipulating, some questions are rephrased and asked again, but that's it—at the very best.

Since aetiologies of psychotic disorders (and mental disorders generally) are unknown, the disorders being just syndromes, there is no way to test for validity: when someone (subconsciously or deliberately) manipulates the test, there is no way of telling.

Therefore it is important to come up with questions that are what may be called "extra-syndromal" or "trans-syndromal": true for people having the syndrome, but not known to anyone else or at least not strictly associated with the syndrome.

The best way to make sure that is the case is to ask for characteristics that (pretty much) everyone with the syndrome shares with each other—but unbeknownst to them—and to ask for things that aren't apparent or strictly behavioural.

The prediction round is to assess which questions are not strictly associated with the disorder, or each other, by those that have it (making it likely that others are even less likely to make those associations).

The answer round is meant to see which answers answers are validity indicators.

Finding an optimal set of questions is done by taking both validity, independence and reliability into account.

Finally, inverse (possibly/likely multivariate) correlations with answers given by people with other disorders, determines which questions can be used for differential diagnosis.

There are probably far better questions than these 10, so this game/process is cyclic: removing useless questions and adding new ones (like a card game).

Given the small number of predictions so far, the prediction round will be extended further and will end when we have 3 predictions (again, giving correlation predictions isn't strictly necessary).

Sorry for being one day later than promised with my predictions.

Icare_1: 8
Icare_2: 2
Icare_3: 5
Icare_4: 2
Icare_5: 2
Icare_6: 6
Icare_7: 7
Icare_8: 2
Icare_9: 3
Icare_10: 6

Icare_1 -> 3
2 -> 4, 5
1 -< 2
4 -> 5
3 -< 5
3 -> 6, 1, 7
7 -< 8
1 -> 10
7 -> 9
8 -> 9
1 -> 10
9 >-< 10
2 -< 10

The natural language version (or description, maybe some explanation) of the correlations I will do tomorrow or the day after.

Do you want a written explanation/answer for each question? I have Dyscalculia; therefore, I don't understand what the numbers or other symbols represent or mean.

I see you have numbers representing some of your answers. Is that a 1-10 scale with 10 being the most important?

This is super complicated. All I have is an art degree.