Do aspies have better hearing?

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it depends on the sound... like, i can hear the light bulb in my dining room humming from living room, but i still listen to my music turned up all the way.. lol.

but even if i can hear stuff doesn't mean i'll register it's meaning.. for example, if someone talks to me, it sometimes takes me a few seconds (or longer) to process what they said, so i often say things like "huh?" or "what?" which makes it seem like i didn't hear, but i heard, i just didn't process it... or processed it late. so sometimes i don't know what people say when they talk to me. anyone else have this happen to them??

I do have extremely acute hearing. I frequently hear things that others don't. There is a store in downtown San Francisco that I can't shop at because their alarm system emits this painful, high-pitched whine that gives me an awful headache. No one else seems to notice it.

Yeah, hearing something something and processing it correctly are two different things.

Last edited by Jael on 17 Sep 2008, 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

I do have hypersensitivity to bass sounds, loud music and loud people, it drives me nuts: like music from the neighbours even if so low that I am the only one that can hear it. Also if stressed or tired, depending on the sounds or the music in the background, I sometimes cannot understand what has been said on the TV or what someone is saying as its sounds like a foreign language to me, probably some "circuits overload".

I don't know that my hearing is more sensitive than others. However, the buzzing of florescent lights drives me nuts. I can't hear voices over background unless I'm really concentrating. I generally want to strangle the sound guy on the few occasions I go to hear a live band. For that matter, I frequently need to flee if it's too loud--which is most of the time. Sometimes when someone speaks to me, even if it's otherwise quiet the meaning doesn't gel. I heard the noise but it doesn't make sense.

Yeah, sometimes if I'm watching the news, I'm aware that my comprehension lags my hearing.
So in between, I'm aware of my audio buffers filling up while my processing follows behind.
On those occasions, you really have to work !
Fortunately, I have good auditory retention - which allows me to write down phone numbers when they've been blurted out really quickly .... and feck, don't some people KNOW how to feck up giving out a phone number.
One thing that REALLY annoys me is critters who refuse to use the word 'double' or 'triple' in a number.
It multiplies the level of difficulty several times because you have to keep track of how many times they say the digit - apart from sounding moronic.

I think they do it because they find TAKING numbers with the words 'double' or 'treble' in them difficult.
Why ?
Because they're poised with a pen when suddenly this word that's not actually a number comes out - and then they have to do concommitant processing ..... ooh! Difficult one for dumboes.
Well, maybe not dumboes - but they certainly have NO idea as to how much more difficult, disagreeable and discool doing it makes things.

Big GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

It DOES depend on the sound. I can hear music over PAs before others notice it, if it is on really low or there's a lot of background noise. I hear it first, say what it is and then someone else notices it.

I don't think my ear-drums actually detect sound better than anyone else, I think I just notice things at a finer level. I can tell when a tube TV or monitor is turned on as soon as I enter a house-sized building (the advent of LCDs and plasmas is a further boon to me) by a high, tingling buzz/ring noise. Same thing when I plug in my Nintendo DS to charge it: I hear a similar noise. Sometimes these and other ambient noises can become less ambient and more all-consuming as they grow on my mind.

I'm quite sensitive to some noises. The static on the telly drives me up the wall. But like everyone else on this thread, background noise cancels conversation. Restaurants are torture, and I've never frequented pubs. For awhile I worked in a small clinical lab, and the buzzing, clicking of the machines made conversation nearly impossible. (Plus I started imitating the hisses and clicks in a musical sort of way.)

Correction : NEARLY everyone else on this thread.
I have no issues with hearing conversation in noisy environments.

But could it be that AS ears aren't tuned to the human voice in the same way that the AS mind isn't tuned to human interaction ?

Some aspies, some other autistic people and some non-autistic "NT" people have better hearing than others.

Better hearing can come with auditory processing issues. And sensory (processing) issues can come with any autism.

I find it has more to do with autonomically trying to focus on all the voices one at a time, all at once. You just get this garbled alien-speech.

My hearing has always been sensitive.

My hearing is sensitive.

It was intact when I was tested when I was 26. The woman who was testing me was surprised. Hearing loss normally starts in the teens these days.

I had a cell phone at one point but couldn't use it out doors, because I couldn't hear anything anyone said. I have major problems with pay phones, too. Why do they always put them in the noisiest places? And now they don't have doors, either.

No problems with in-person conversations in noisy places, though.

I think that we're just more attentive/sensitive to what our senses pick up. NTs can unconciously filter stuff out that we tend to get distracted by.

I've had my hearing tested throughout my life at regular intervals and it is very good (I've made a point to protect it though), but its by no means superhuman or outside of the normal spectrum of human sensitivity.

My hearing sucks. But I can hear those TVs with no sound on when it's turned on. I also can't stand bass or real loud music. I also have troubles hearing with too much noise in the background.

I always hear electronics, even on mute. Fluorescent lights too. I can't ride the bus because of the noise overload...I too can hear dog whistles, but only barely.
I have the same problem some have described where I can't pick out human voices in a loud place.

I think our hearing is at the same level of acuteness as an NT's, but they have more filters between what they physically hear and what they register as hearing.