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Love picking up new skills that can enrich your daily life? If so, TED Courses is for you — it was created with all you forever learners and self-improvers in mind and taught by some of your favorite TED speakers. Neuroscientist and bestselling author Lisa Genova is the instructor for a course called “How to boost your brain + memory.” Go here to find out about it, and also read her advice below on common types of forgetting. 

To be human is to forget things. But you’ve probably wondered: “When is forgetting normal, and when is it not?”

Here are four examples:

1. Forgetting where you parked

Not remembering where you parked because you didn’t pay attention is normal and different than what happens with Alzheimer’s.

If you have Alzheimer’s, let’s say you park in a mall garage and shop for an hour. When you return to the parking garage, you’re not wondering if you parked on level three or level four, you’re thinking, “I don’t remember how I got here.” Or you’re standing in front of your car, but you don’t recognize it as yours.

2. Forgetting a person’s name or movie title

Having a word stuck on the tip of your tongue — that oh-what’s-their-name phenomenon called blocking — is normal and does not mean you have Alzheimer’s.

This is one of the most common experiences of memory retrieval failure. You’re trying to come up with a word and most often a proper noun, such as a person’s name or a movie title. You know you know this word, but you cannot retrieve it on demand.

Yet with that said, failure to retrieve words can also be an early sign of Alzheimer’s. So how can you know whether it’s an ordinary tip-of-the-tongue moment or a symptom of dementia? If it’s Alzheimer’s, you’re blocking on dozens of words a day. And instead of blanking primarily on proper nouns, people with Alzheimer’s will regularly forget common nouns such as pen, spoon, bicycle.

3. Forgetting where you put your keys or other objects

Losing track of where you left your keys is normal, and it’s probably just a result of your not paying attention to them.

But losing your keys and finding them in a place that keys shouldn’t be (like the refrigerator or microwave), or finding them and wondering who they belong to or what they’re used for is not normal. These could be symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

4. Forgetting how to do an activity like making coffee

This one has to do with your muscle memory, which is remarkably stable over time — we tend to remember how to do what we’ve learned to do, especially when it’s an activity we perform routinely.

So if you go to make a cup of coffee and don’t remember how to work the machine or you’re doing laundry but can’t remember how to use the washer or you’re stumped by any other tasks you’ve long known how to do and regularly do, this may be a sign of Alzheimer’s.

However, forgetting doesn’t always have to be due to Alzheimer’s. It could be due to mild cognitive impairment (which doesn’t necessarily progress to Alzheimer’s), a B-12 deficiency or not enough sleep, to name a few causes. Just as you do with your heart health or reproductive health, I encourage you to be in conversation with your doctor about your memory and realize you have a lot of agency over your brain health.

Interested in finding out more about how your memory works (and when it doesn’t)? Sign up now for Lisa Genova’s on brain and memory. And while you’re at it, check out our other TED Courses from some of your most loved speakers and learn more skills to boost your life. Among them: Podcast host Manoush Zomorodi offers insights in “how to reimagine your career”; writers Charlie Jane Anders and Wanuri Kahiu teach “how to nurture your imagination”; and educator and author Julie Lythcott-Haims tells you “how to become your best adult self.” 

Watch her TED Talk now: 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O’Briens and Every Note Played. Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart. She graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. Genova travels worldwide speaking about the neurological diseases that she writes about and has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Today, PBS NewsHour, CNN and NPR. Her TED Talk — called “What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s” — has been viewed more than five million times to date. Her newest book is a New York Times bestseller and her first work of nonfiction.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Nadine Redlich

Our bodies are designed to respond to touch, and not just to sense the environment around us.

We actually have a network of dedicated nerve fibers in our skin that detect and emotionally respond to the touch of another person — affirming our relationships, our social connections and even our sense of self.

So, what happens when we don’t receive that?

This was one of the first questions that neuroscientist Helena Wasling PhD considered when social distancing restrictions were introduced to curb the spread of COVID-19. Based at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, she has studied these nerves — known as C tactile or CT afferents — and their importance to our emotions for over a decade.

“What struck me very early on, in the first week of being told that we were restricted from touch,  was that people no longer knew how to behave,” she says.

Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a tactile person, touch is — or was — embedded in the social structure of our lives. From meeting a new colleague and evaluating their handshake to giving a friend a long hug when we haven’t seen them in a while, it is one of the fundamental ways we have all learned to relate to one another. “To take it away is a very big intervention,” says Wasling.

New York based psychologist Guy Winch PhD agrees; “Touch is something we associate with emotional closeness, and we associate the absence of it with emotional distance. We may not fully appreciate it, but in pre-pandemic life there were literally dozens of small moments of touch throughout the day.”

This is significant not just in the landscape of our minds, but that of our bodies. Being emotionally and socially responsive to touch is so biologically fundamental to us that CT afferents are present over almost every inch of our skin, absent only from the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet.

These nerves are, Wasling explains in her TEDxGöteborg talk, particularly attuned to three things: a light touch, gently moving, and around 32 degrees Celsius (89F). Which just happens to be human skin temperature. So they are programmed to be most responsive to a gentle caress from another person.

Rather than simply telling our brains that this touch has happened — this is the role of other receptors in the skin that help the primary somatosensory cortex to processes physical sensations — CT afferents instead send signals to the insular cortex. “This is a deeper part of the cortex that deals more with your emotional equilibrium,” explains Wasling. “So you will get kind of a vague sensation. In the best of cases, it will be: ‘That was nice. I’m accepted. I feel safer now. Someone is counting on me.’ CT afferents also have pathways to parts of the brain that deal with who you are socially.”

For people who have now been living without that connection for a long time, it can be incredibly difficult, says Winch. “I have friends and patients that I work with who have not been touched in a year. At all. Not a handshake. And they are really suffering for it. There’s something that feels very distancing and cold about not having any kind of option for an embrace, and that can leave long lasting scars.”

Hugs, the form of touch we probably all miss the most, are particularly important and emotionally nourishing, says Winch. “When someone’s crying and we hold them, we’re doing it to comfort, but what it allows them to do is cry more. People usually will hold it together until somebody puts an arm around them, and then they’ll break down because that hug represents security and safety, and because of the closeness we feel when we know and trust that person.”

Moreover, the benefits of touch that we are missing out on are not just emotional and social but also physical; it can reduce pain and stress, as well as giving us a general feeling of wellbeing. These are the areas, says Wasling, where we may be able to support ourselves when we need to go for prolonged periods without social touch.

Here are some of the ways that we can ease the difficulty of living without this closeness — both for ourselves, and the people in our lives:

Take a shower or have a warm bath.

Although it doesn’t elicit quite the same physiological response as interpersonal touch, Wasling says the slow movement of the water on your skin is likely to generate a CT afferent response. Having a warm bath also relaxes your muscles, which can help to alleviate tension.

Cuddle a pet, or ask to walk someone else’s.

“Just being close to a furry animal has been shown to lower your stress, reduce your heart rate and your blood pressure,” says Wasling. You also have a social relationship with your pet — they rely on you and need you to show up for them.

There’s been a noted increase in people adopting pets during the pandemic, and at least one study has identified the potential therapeutic benefits of human-animal relationships when we are denied our normal level of human social interaction.

If you are able to see anyone in person, be wholly present — even if you can’t touch.

When we remove touch from our social interactions, we should consider what else we can emphasize instead. “Maybe we could be better at looking each other in the eyes, if we do have physical meetings,” suggests Wasling. “We can make sure that we see each other, because touching a person is a way of saying that ‘I see you, I acknowledge your existence.’”

Don’t be afraid to have deeper, more meaningful conversations where you really listen — especially if you know someone might be isolated or lonely. While these interactions don’t activate the same touch-based neural pathways, they still stimulate our social sense of belonging and intimacy, says Winch.

Don’t just “check in” on people who are alone — connect with them meaningfully.

It feels like everyone from our employers to the Twittersphere to US vice president Kamala Harris is reminding us to check in on our single friends. But are we going the right way about it?

“When we say ‘check in’ that’s like a checkbox. Tick; done,” says Winch. But that really isn’t enough. While the boredom and frustration of lockdowns are similar experiences for everyone, being isolated from the regular physical closeness of friends and family is uniquely difficult for people who are alone; the elderly, those who live by themselves, and those who are in high risk categories and cannot chance even one hug.

“If you just check in, that’s not going to be sufficient. You should be talking for at least 15 – 20 minutes for that to be a meaningful conversation. You have to really connect,” says Winch. If you’re both feeling Zoom fatigue, try each taking a walk while you talk on the phone.

If friends have described feeling ghostly or unreal, do your best to appreciate that the absence of touch has been a significant emotional loss for them during this time. One that you may never fully understand. Try not to say “I know how you feel,” if you are not in the same position.

“You know that when you touch things, they’re real to you,” says Wasling. “One of the reasons why I think touch is so important is that it makes you convinced you have a place in the social world of other people.”

As we look towards a vaccinated future, it is difficult to know right now how the pandemic will change our social attitudes towards touch in the long term. Will we still shake hands? Hug colleagues? A UK study conducted from January to March 2020, mostly before lockdown measures were introduced, found that 54 percent of people already felt they had too little touch in their lives. So we may well want this aspect of our lives to return as soon as possible.

But one facet that worries Winch is how the pandemic has actually reshaped our relationship with touch; “We took the thing that represents something so close, intimate and important, and now it represents something that’s actually dangerous and you should avoid. Even if we don’t fully register it, we are going to feel surges of anxiety at the idea of getting a hug. It’s going to take a while to bring us down from the danger alert of touch.”

Watch Helena Wasling’s TEDxGöteborg Talk here: 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.

Steve Silberman is a writer and contributing editor for Wired, and the author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity (which will be out in paperback on the 23rd). He gave a TED Talk on the forgotten history of autism, and recently spoke before the United Nations on the need for acceptance and understanding of neurodiversity. In the must-read interview below, he explores what teachers need to know about autism and neurodiversity. “If you understand that the autistic students in your class are just as complex and nuanced and intensely emotional and hopeful as you are,” says Silberman, “you’ll do everything in your power to help them lead happier and more engaged lives.”

The history of autism makes clear that the notion that there is one best way to learn, one best way to experience the world, and one best way to be human, is bunk.

Michael McWatters: Why should an educator learn about the history of autism? I’m not just thinking of teachers who work with special needs students, but those who work with typical children as well.

Steve Silberman: In part, learning the history can help them avoid making the same mistakes that educators and clinicians made in previous generations — such as believing that there is a normal child trapped behind the “autistic shell.” As a society, the history of autism makes clear that the notion that there is one best way to learn, one best way to experience the world, and one best way to be human, is bunk. That belief prevailed through most of the 20th Century, when psychiatrists elevated themselves into a position akin to secular priests. But it’s based on a false model of how human brains work, and it ends up stigmatizing and marginalizing people who have tremendous gifts to offer society. Think about it: why would the community of human minds be less diverse than, say, a rainforest? But it isn’t. We’re part of the natural world, and nature thrives by experimenting, by fostering the development of many different types of individuals. In a rainforest, this wild riot of variety and difference makes communities of plants and animals more resilient in the face of changing conditions. As we face the challenges of the 21st Century — which include a rapidly changing global climate! — we will need many different types of minds working together. As a teacher, you’re helping to build the foundation on which the fate of humanity may depend.

Think about it: why would the community of human minds be less diverse than, say, a rainforest?

MM: As the parent of an autistic child myself, I feel grateful that he’s growing up in a time and place where, for the most part, he’ll have opportunities denied earlier generations of autistic children and adults. And yet, there’s still a lot of work to be done in the United States. If you could change anything about our approach to educating autistic and other neurodivergent children, what would it be? How is educating autistic kids handled in the rest of the world? Any schools or countries you want to highlight?

SS: It’s easy to forget that for most of the 20th Century, autistic kids were thought by experts to be not just developmentally delayed, but uneducable — literally incapable of learning. This is not surprising, because the recommended course of treatment for autism was institutionalization, and there was no Special Ed going on in psych wards. Then before the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act — the predecessor to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) — kids with autism were routinely excluded from public schools. The fact that we’re even talking about “changing our approach” represents that society has taken huge steps forward toward inclusion in the past couple of decades, due to the efforts of autism parents like Ruth Sullivan, co-founder of the Autism Society of America, and civil-rights activists who are disabled themselves.

But we’re still just in the first years of discovering which sorts of accommodations and supports help autistic students thrive. The principles of Universal Design for Learning can be very helpful for teachers who want to know more about ways of customizing core curricula to suit the learning styles of individual students. Obviously, the foundational principle of these efforts must be presuming competence — believing in the potential of your students, and doing everything you can to help them realize that potential, rather than viewing them as checklists of deficits and dysfunctions that must be “handled” in the classroom. I can’t tell you how many parents have come up to me after my talks to tell me that when their son or daughter was first diagnosed, they were told that their child would never be capable of going to a mainstream school — and now they’re graduating from college. In fact, one of my autistic friends, Mark Romoser, was diagnosed by Leo Kanner himself. He told me, “Kanner told my mother to put me in an institution. So she did — Yale.” Obviously, not all autistic kids are capable of going to Yale, or even to college. But as schoolteachers say in Finland, “We can’t afford to waste a brain.”

One of my suggestions for improving education is very basic: pay teachers more. Pay them like the professionals they are — highly valued professionals with the crucial job of putting kids on the pathway to success and a fulfilling life.

One of my suggestions for improving education is very basic: pay teachers more. Pay them like the professionals they are — highly valued professionals with the crucial job of putting kids on the pathway to success and a fulfilling life. The average salary for a middle school teacher in the United States is $45,000, which is a full third less than we pay dental hygienists. That’s not enough for someone to live, much less support a family, with the rents we’re all paying now. When I’ve visited good schools for special-needs kids like the Morgan Autism Center in San José and Ambitious About Autism in London, the tireless dedication and profound care the teachers had for their students was nothing less than awe-inspiring. I’m sure it’s deeply gratifying work, but as a society, we should treat teachers with more respect by paying them a living wage.

Another suggestion for improving education for autistic kids: create opportunities for mentorship by autistic adults. Invite autistic self-advocates into the classroom to give talks and team up with students for projects. Nothing sends a more encouraging message to a young autistic kid than hearing from someone who’s been there, dealt with similar challenges, and figured out practical ways of making life work. Encourage the students to read writing by autistic authors, and then invite autistic adults to become part of the teaching process. The neurotypical students would benefit from hearing from them too.

MM: Some experts believe you shouldn’t indulge an autistic child’s obsessions. The fear seems to be that obsessions naturally become barriers between the child and the outside world. And yet history provides myriad examples of autistic obsessions leading to incredible breakthroughs for humanity, some of which you’ve documented in NeuroTribes. What are your thoughts on encouraging an interest — even one that might appear obsessive — versus redirecting a child away from it?

SS: Kids on the spectrum learn and develop in different ways than typical kids. They have their own distinct trajectories. Hans Asperger and his colleagues figured this out way back in the 1930s. He described one of his young patients who became an assistant professor of astronomy because his mother encouraged his special interests in geometry and math from the age of two onward. In middle school, the boy practically had to beg his teachers to give him advanced tutoring in math, because they thought he wasn’t capable of working at that level. Then, in first year at university, he detected an error in one of Isaac Newton’s proofs. Asperger was careful to note that it wasn’t that this young man had somehow grown out of autism — he was still, in Asperger’s words, “blatantly autistic.” But he succeeded because he was supported in pursuing his special interests.

In the 20th Century, there were all kinds of theories about how you had to “break” kids out of their “autistic shells” by punishing them — often quite brutally — for their “obsessions.” But even behaviorist Ivar Lovaas, who popularized this theory, eventually admitted that he was wrong: there was no normal child inside the autistic shell. Indeed, there was no shell. Instead, there was an autistic person needing support. And autistic people learn by going narrow and deep rather than broad and shallow. Temple Grandin‘s curious fascination with barnyard animals raised alarm for the psychologist at her high school — “We don’t think we’re a cow, do we?” he condescendingly said to her. But her science teacher, Bill Carlock, encouraged Temple’s passion for animals, and that became her doorway into science, which became the foundation of a very successful career in a highly demanding field. In Life, Animated, Ron Suskind describes a similar process of becoming closer to his autistic son Owen by attending to his interest in all things Disney. This is a truth that autism parents have been discovering on their own for generations, often against the advice of the “experts.”

MM: You as well as others have criticized the labels “high functioning” and “low functioning.” Why do you think it’s important to move away from these labels? Are there other, less fraught ways to convey ability?

SS: Here’s the thing: both terms obscure more than they reveal. So-called “high functioning” people are often struggling more behind the scenes than is obvious to the casual neurotypical observer, while allegedly “low functioning” people often have talents and abilities that could be brought out and cultivated if they were provided with appropriate means for communication and were not constantly in environments in which they feel overwhelmed.

Equally to the point, even “high functioning” people can temporarily lose speech while under conditions of extreme stress. Functioning labels are not only demeaning, they’re unstable — as my autistic friend Carol Greenburg, who has an autistic son, puts it, “Some days are more autistic than others.” I believe the persistence of these labels reflects one of the historical misconceptions that I tried to dispel in my book: that Leo Kanner saw only “low functioning” children, while Hans Asperger saw only “high functioning” ones. As I explore in depth in NeuroTribes, this framing is wrong from both directions. Asperger saw more than 200 kids, at all levels of ability, including those who would need support every day of their lives. But he only told his Nazi bosses about his “most promising cases,” in part because they were actively involved with exterminating disabled children en masse in accord with eugenics laws from Berlin. And Leo Kanner’s early patients included a man who would go on to get married, serve in the Navy, become a meteorologist, and compose pieces that were played by symphony orchestras. I have no doubt that some of Kanner’s patients would have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome had they been born later, and that some of Asperger’s patients would have met Kanner’s very strict criteria for a diagnosis of early infantile autism. So, where is the bright line dividing these allegedly very distinct clinical populations? There isn’t one. Each autistic person is different, and in fact, as autistic self-advocate Jim Sinclair observed, autistic people are more different from one another than neurotypical people are.

Taking a cue from autistic self-advocates, I prefer to use the phrases “high support needs” and “low support needs” — noting that the level of need can change day to day, or even moment to moment. They’re not only less dehumanizing terms, they’re more accurate.

MM: Douglas Biklen once said that we should assume “that a child has intellectual ability, provide opportunities to be exposed to learning, assume the child wants to learn and assert him or herself in the world. To not presume competence is to assume that some individuals cannot learn, develop, or participate in the world. Presuming competence is nothing less than a Hippocratic oath for educators.” What are your thoughts on this advice to those educating autistic and neurodivergent students? How can they “presume competence” while simultaneously taking special measures to support their students?

SS: Never assume that the ability to speak equals intelligence. There are plenty of autistic people who have trouble speaking but who have glorious creative worlds inside them seeking avenues of expression. Never assume that an autistic person who can’t speak isn’t listening closely to every word you say, or isn’t feeling the emotional impact of your words. I’ve interviewed many autistic people who said they could hear and understand everything around them while people called them “idiots” or described them as “out of it” to their faces. Ultimately, presuming competence is the ability to imagine that the person in front of you is just as human as you are, even if they seem to be very impaired. If you understand that the autistic students in your class are just as complex and nuanced and intensely emotional and hopeful as you are, you’ll do everything in your power to help them lead happier and more engaged lives.

Inclusion sends a crucial message to all students: If you’re born disabled or become disabled in your lifetime, society will build a place for you.

MM: There’s a wonderful quote in your book by writer Barry Morrow about his friend Bill Sackter, the inspiration for the main character Raymond Babbitt in the movie Rain Man: “What Bill taught me is that not only do people like Bill need society, but society needs people like Bill.” Can you elaborate on that thought and, in particular, how it might relate to schools and classrooms? What is the social and emotional impact of having a neurodiverse student body?

SS: The virtues of inclusion go far beyond some notion of charity or being generous to the disadvantaged. The presence of disabled children in a classroom teaches both disabled and non-disabled kids that disability is nothing to fear or hate, and that disability is part of the human experience. If we’re lucky enough to live to an old age, we all become disabled eventually. Inclusion sends a crucial message to all students: If you’re born disabled or become disabled in your lifetime, society will build a place for you. You will not be cast out, discarded, left behind, or shunned as broken or inferior. This, in turn, reduces bullying, as several studies have shown. Disabled students who are not bullied will grow up to become happier, less stressed-out, and more confident, which will enable them to advocate for their own needs more effectively. I know that mainstreaming is not appropriate for every child. But the practice of inclusion boils down to giving every child what they need to realize their maximum potential and have the best chance of success.

MM: If you could offer one bit of advice to educators who regularly work with autistic and neurodiverse students, what would it be?

SS: Listen to autistic and other neurodivergent people. Read books by them, follow their blogs and tweets, and talk to them in person. There’s nothing like first-person perspectives to illuminate the experience of life for people who think differently. I would also recommend a book called Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism by Barry Prizant and Tom Fields-Meyer. It offers very helpful and compassionate insight into autistic experience of the sensory world and the nature of “difficult” behavior.

MM: It’s clear that NeuroTribes is a project you approached not only with great professionalism, but with great passion. How has this experience affected you personally?

SS: That passion increased as I did my research, because it became clear to me how many horrific abuses had been heaped on autistic people through the decades — everything from electric shocks, dangerous experimental “treatments,” lifelong institutionalization, and actual genocide, to the less-obvious bigotry of describing autistic children as being the hapless victims of a vaccine-induced global epidemic. The other day, I saw a video clip of Del Bigtree, the producer of Andrew Wakefield’s propaganda film Vaxxed, comparing autistic children to dogs and chimpanzees, because their minds are apparently incomprehensible to him. People used to talk that way about people of color too. Gay people like me were routinely described as sex-obsessed psychopaths and predators with mother issues, whose practices in the bedroom were too grotesque to be mentioned in civil society. (For the record, on our first date, my future husband and I went to a malt shop — it was more like Leave It to Beaver than Fifty Shades of Grey.) It’s as if we’ve had to discover, over and over again, that these beings we’ve characterized as foreign and strange and incomprehensible are just people. You know that famous line from cosmology about how it’s “turtles all the way down”? Well, the main lesson I learned from writing my book is that it’s people all the way down. And we all deserve a chance to live our lives to the fullest during our very brief time on Earth.

Art credit: Sarah Rebar/TED-Ed Blog

Author bio: Michael McWatters is a writer for TED-Ed Blog and UX Architect for TED. One of his twins, Colin, is autistic. Read more of his writing about autism on ASDDad and on Medium.

Pokémon Go is a free, location-based, augmented reality game — but why is it so popular? To understand, let’s look at the neuroscience behind Pokémon Go. Here are 4 ideas that can explain how it became such a phenomenon:

1. The augmented reality approach leads to an amplified focus on Self. Humans are narcissistic beings. Research has shown that we pay more attention to things that relate to ourselves, and that when we talk about ourselves, the dopamine reward circuit in our brains is activated, which is why it feels good. So, by giving the player complete control, you make the game about them. You might have control of your player or character when you play other games such as Call of Duty, but the augmented reality of Pokémon Go gives you the ability to self-generate the experience literally whenever and wherever you wish, provided you have your phone on hand. You can catch Pokemon in the park, in the office, or in your apartment, day or night. You get a little boost in self-efficacy every time you open the game and something happens, because you recognize that you govern this virtual layer on top of your existing environment. This achievement is reflected in both self-image and product appreciation, which keeps you coming back for more.

2. The game is one continuous novel playscape. Our brains love novelty, and the same dopaminergic reward pathway that’s accessed when we talk about ourselves is also activated when we experience new things. Activation of this pathway directs individuals to repeat what they just did to get more rewards. In the case of Pokémon Go, you’re experiencing new things every single time you play the game — and that drives you to go to new locations, so you can find new Pokemon.

3. The emotional impact is layered. Research has shown that virtual responses activate the same neural networks as real experiences, in the same way that images of rewards and real rewards are perceived almost identically in the brain. Pokémon Go takes cues from the actual environment and couples them with the virtual world for greater impact. For example, if you’re near a body of water you might catch a Magikarp, and if you’re in the subway you might catch a Rattata — this water/land congruence increases your sense of delight and accomplishment. Bundling emotions strengthens the positive association with the game and keeps you hooked.

4. The game promotes social connection. Social needs are some of the most powerful drivers of behavior. We are influenced by what others around us do, so if everyone is playing Pokémon Go, we’ll be encouraged to do the same. Currently more than 90% of Americans ages 18-65 have heard of Pokémon Go. The mobility of the game as a result of augmented reality also allows for collaboration among players locally and virtually. If the guy you see pacing around the corner is catching Pokemon, then there’s an instant connection there, a recognition that you’re part of something bigger — not only through conversation, but through in-game collaboration and competition.

The big takeaway? Pokémon Go employs techniques commonly used in video game design, but the augmented reality approach has enhanced and magnified these effects to capture and distract us on a whole new plane.

Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya is an art director at Primacy and founder of The Leading Strand, an initiative that shines a light on scientific research through design. She was part of the first-ever TED Residency and holds an MFA from Pratt and a neuroscience degree from Columbia.

For more articles at the intersection of education, art and science, sign up for the weekly TED-Ed newsletter here >>

Images credit: Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya/TED-Ed Blog

Alix Generous, one of the youngest speakers at the TEDWomen 2015 conference, is an undergraduate student with Asperger’s syndrome. She is also a biology researcher, United Nations presenter  — and co-owner of the startup AutismSees, which offers technology tools designed to make presentations easier for people who avoid eye contact.

We caught up with Alix to discuss mental diversity, the DSM-V — and the idea that complex problems require unique minds.

For people who are just starting to learn about about the autism spectrum and the diversity of minds, where would you recommend they start? Are there any books or authors that you think do a nice job of explaining these topics?

Wikipedia. I would highly suggest Wikipedia. As for books, Andrew Solomon’s book Far From the Tree. Also, A Mind Apart by Susanne Antonetta. She’s a very famous neuroscientist. If you want to get into more pop culture neuroscience about mental disorders and stuff like that, I would suggest Oliver Sacks. He makes neuroscience and case studies sexy.

Now, if you want to be hardcore (like I do), you could read the DSM-V [the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders]. The nice thing is that it is understandable, and a lot of it is bullet points and lists of symptoms. So it’s not this dense book like everybody thinks it is. I mean, it’s a big book, but you’re not reading boring, small-worded essays — you’re actually seeing what doctors use to diagnose people with behavior problems. I started reading it when I was 13, when the DSM-IV was out, and I learned a lot. It debunks a lot of myths and stigmas associated with mental illness.

The one problem is that [the switch from autism to autism spectrum disorder in the DSM-V] generalizes autism, so for people who aren’t educated about it, they’ll assume that Asperger’s is the same thing as non-verbal autism. At the same time, in terms of the neuroscience behind these disorders — behavior, all human behavior, autism or not, exists on a spectrum, and so in that way it is more accurate. But in terms of the ignorance that exists in a lot of populations about autism, it’s not necessarily a good tool.

If you could synthesize your message, what do you want to say to students and teachers around the world about how to best relate to a diversity of minds?

Listen. That’s honestly it. People are often trying to understand people in relation to themselves and what they experience, but you can’t do that. You have to take yourself outside of who you are in order to really understand somebody. So when someone tells you that they have Asperger’s, don’t think of a bunch of symptoms — think about who they are and what they’re interested in and go off of that.

Once we start listening, how can we be more accepting and welcoming? What’s the best way to do that, to make room for everyone?

Be kind. That’s honestly what it comes down to. There is never a reason to be mean — you can even communicate constructive criticism in a manner that’s respectful and without being a pushover. Just be nice, even if you don’t understand.

What do you think that people get wrong about Asperger’s?

Well, oftentimes when people think of disabilities, they think of the extremity of disability. They think of someone who maybe can’t talk at all, and can’t engage in this world, and never has a hope to — but having a disability is not about that. Any label and diagnosis like Asperger’s is something that’s prescribed by a qualified professional in order to get reimbursed for insurance money. And Asperger’s differs from person to person, and you really can’t put it in a box, because everyone’s different. Like me, for example — I don’t care for anime or any of that stuff. I am a girly girl with Asperger’s. People with Asperger’s are stereotyped as being super nerds — and I am a nerd when it comes to science, but not with stuff like anime. But one of my best friends who has Asperger’s is really into all of that, and draws anime, loves Pokemon. My point is that everybody is different, and if you really want to connect with someone with Asperger’s, you do so by talking about something they’re interested in.

It’s all about the individual.

Yeah, it is. And that’s the case with everybody you meet. Regardless of their intelligence — the world does not need more intelligent people, it needs people who are kinder, and who are willing to create more positive energy to make it better.