An Exact Mind: An Artist With Asperger Syndrome

by Peter Myers, Simon Baron-Cohen

Peter Myers' intricate and ornately patterned drawings are brought together for the first time in this volume, which is the fascinating result of the collaboration of an artist and two scientists. The beautiful, complex images (included in full-page colour as well as black and white reproductions) serve as a rare window into the precision and exacting creativity of the Asperger mind at work. Peter Myers was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome in 1996 and his work reflects his stunning ability to plan and to organise visual information, and to embed illusions within his pictures. Peter's brief explanatory captions which accompany the images offer insight into the ways in which he composes his pictures. In the main text of the book, psychologists Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright discuss the work's great psychological significance, demonstrating in accessible language their ground-breaking systemizing theory of how the autistic mind processes information.

Genres: Psychology, Art, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Nonfiction

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Laxmi]

This book is about a person who lived his childhood and adolescent years without knowing that he possesses a condition of the autism spectrum. Having been able to do well in his academics, he was just unable to initiate or retain friendships or relationships, which did not get much attention in his growing years. He is currently an artist, and an amazing one at it! The book, could be a great way to introduce yourself to one of the conditions that sure needs much awareness.
Mindblindness, is something I learnt about from this book. Peter says, "Empathy and communication are both two-way processes. It is not just that an autistic person may have difficulty empathizing with another, or others, but that another, or others, may have difficulty empathizing with an autistic person. The constant is that there is no common or shared reference point. Thus both, the autistic and non autistic alike, in relation to each other are ‘mindblind’. Independently they are not,
together they are."
Today is World Autism Awareness Day.

[Books on Autism · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay. The real highlight of the book is the artwork by Myers, and his commentary that explains what each of his pieces meant to him and how he came to draw them. If the book had been written entirely by Myers then I likely would have given it a five star rating.
Unfortunately, the part of the book not written by Myers was largely advocating for the idea that the systemising/extreme male brain theory of autism was the best theory to explain autism. It did this my dismissing the other main theories (executive functioning and weak central coherence), but did so in a way that made it seem like they didn't actually understand those theories. For example, the argument was made that if Myers had any executive functioning difficulties then he would not be able to work like he does. It's an overly simplistic, and inaccurate, description of executive functioning. This was enough to knock stars off for me.
I would encourage people to read it -simply because Myer has an interesting story to tell both about his life, and about the artwork he creates.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two stars for the text, which is interesting enough as far as it goes but seems to lie awkwardly between academic and popular writing, and ends up lacking the rigour of one and the style of the other.

Five stars for the simply stunning pictures produced by Mr Myers. I could look at his fish picture for hours.

[Charly · Rating 3 out of 5]

No profundiza seriamente, solo describe la vida de un personaje con la enfermedad y sus logros.