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Temple Grandin’s search-engine brain

6 minutes

Temple Grandin on the connection between autism and genius

‘I am what I do more than what I feel.’

Born with ‘full-blown autism symptoms’, Temple Grandin is a renowned animal behaviour expert and autism spokesperson. She found success in the livestock industry by embracing her idiosyncratic, visual brain, which, in her words, functions like a ‘search engine set for the image function’. In this cleverly animated interview excerpt from 2008, Grandin describes how she gets great satisfaction from practical achievements rather than emotions, and how some of history’s most original thinkers might have been on the autism spectrum.

Producer: Amy Drozdowska, David Gerlach

Video by Blank on Blank, Quoted Studios

Animation: Gabe Adams, Drew Christie, Dane Herforth, Jesse Lortz

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Support Aeon

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Aeon is a registered charity committed to the spread of knowledge. Our mission is to create a sanctuary online for serious thinking.
But we can’t do it without you.

Aeon is a registered charity committed to the spread of knowledge and a cosmopolitan worldview.
But we can’t do it without you.
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