Noticing "Things" Instead of "People"

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Working for the park service, collecting entrance fees, long before I'd start to recognize the faces of the park regulars coming through, I would recognize them by their dog, the car they're driving, even the signature on the back of their park pass would strike me as familiar before their faces did.

When I think back to visits to people's homes years ago, I can recall random details about the home but doubt I'd recognize any of the people that I met if I bumped shopping carts with them at the grocery store.

9/11: Not that I wasn't thinking of the humanity that day, but when a news show would pull back and show the 'new' NYC skyline without the twin towers - that is the image that would bring the tears. Could also be because my own 9/11 and could-easily-have-been-on-one-of-those-planes story had to do with the towers specifically.

And never thought of any of this as odd until I learned about AS!

- Jo

Slightly off-topic.

A couple I used to know, split after 16 years together when she discovered that he couldn't tell her, without looking, what colour her eyes were!

I took my son to visit his aunt at New Year. The last time he was in her house was 18 months earlier, when he was 5 and we were there for a week.

He noticed that she had moved her kitchen clock and remembered where it used to be!

My wife pokes fun at me because all of my pictures from any trip or event are almost all things where as hers are almost all people! So yea, I definitely notice things more than people

Yeah, my pictures are always of things, too. I notice architectural features, books, paving stones, cracks in the ground or walls, visual patterns. Sometimes I notice people, but I tend to look at people as though they were things of the same category as, for example, a toaster. Just something with moving parts. I tend to stare at people sometimes, because I'm interested in their shape and how that shape makes spaces between other shapes. I rarely notice faces.

Oh I definitely have been the one to notice things, instead of people and I still do. Like for instance one time I met a lady who carried a big pink purse with her. The purse stuck out, and whenever I saw her again, without the purse.. the first thing that came to my mind was "thats the lady who had the big pink purse"... not her name or anything else about her.. just the fact that she once had a big pink purse with her.

yeah..I do this. However, I remember every detail about someone, except their name...

Of course, knowing where things were, etc., kept me out of a lot more trouble than my NT brother... Rule1 - don't get caught...

My family revolves around things more than each other. I feel the most comfortable with my family and extremely uncomfortable with strangers. I have this fear of them. I usually won't talk to them. At my worst, I tell someone in my family I don't like so and so and want to avoid him or her. (someone outside the family, of course).
With family, it's about games. We spend a lot of time playing video games and board games together.

I never remember the colour of people's eyes! I have no idea what my mum's, dad's, brother's or ex-girlfriend's eye colours are! Seriously! I never understood what the big deal about that was, either.

I remember things like decor features in a room, and also people's clothes and colours on people such as hair colour etc.

Doctors, professors, teachers...
It's amazing the variety of executive toys and nick-nacks they have in their offices isn't it?

Wooden woodpeckers on metal poles, puzzles, maps, ornaments, masks...
They certainly collect a lot of memorabilia, and why not?
When I was very young, I'd often ask about these things.
Perhaps they didn't make the connection.

And the books too. Some of their officers are so cluttered that I had to politely ask for the stacks of paper to be removed from a chair before I could sit down.

Zooming in on details in the physical environment: I've always done this.
I've found it very useful for making scientific observations of the physical world.

I used to think that school was a red bricked building with cream coloured grainy mortar in-fill which just happened to contain students who were forced to go there to learn things by the government. I had to go there as an individual.

Much later, I discovered that the other kids didn't view school in this way at all: they saw school as lots of people teachers and other students, that they went to meet every day with their own group of friends. I think that many of them saw school more as a way of having fun and talking to people: school work was a lower priority.


My view of school:
A building I had to go inside that just happened to contain other people.

Other's view of school:
A group of people that just happened to have to go inside a building.

There is a difference here. My foreground vs background seemed to be reversed for some reason.


My view
Foreground: Physical Details of the School Building
Background: Teachers/students (people)


Other students' views
Foreground: Details Teachers/students (people) emotions/relationships
Background: School building


There's a difference in order of priorities here. I seem to have to process the details of the physical environment first before I can talk to others. The other students seemed to have to talk to other people first before they could process details in the physical environment. My view of the world is back to front. My "priority queue" is reversed.

Definitely things first - I can size up a room or building instantly. Then comes trying to figure out how to make smalltalk. Then comes seeing who I want to avoid because I've had past unpleasantries with them. But mostly I avoid social situations with people I don't know.

Z

I notice people quickly and accurately now, but everything that's not a person will just remain more relevant to my memory and perception.

Thing One and Thing Two...topic

About faces: If something is odd I will remember it, only because it is unusual and maybe I have stared at it. But not eye contact.

People on the spectrum seem to notice everything else except the people, and especially not their conversational content.

But I notice certain behaviours/mannerisms, and then I remember the person because of it. This is important, because I need to know I am safe. People are very unpredictable. They change very quickly, at dizzying speeds. Too much for me to decipher. Very confusing.

Colours and patterns and textures and details? Yes!!

a very clear and concise "ditto" to all of the above.

I guess I also notice people´s houses (or apartments) and yards, how they are furnished, etc. I think somehow, I have the impression that if I see the interior of their living space, that tells me a lot about the person; although, I´m not totally sure if that´s true. When someone sees my apartment, do they really get an impression of "me"? Not sure...

I can´t say that I notice every detail about a person´s home, though. There is usually so much to take in, that I tend to focus on a few small particular details, but not on everything. In some ways, therefore, I suspect I may be hypo-sensitive- (there are times when I am kind of oblivious to things). In other words, I often find myself noticing kind of strange details that no one else notices, but not picking up other, more "obvious" details. (But food, though, I always notice. I´m glad to see others are like me).

Some of you mentioned an attachment to some objects, or a tendency to set up objects in your environment. Everything in my apartment is perfectly "placed", if you know what I mean. I like to set up different patterns of candles, flowers, decorations, etc., which I change when the time is right. My environment is very important. If I take a teacup out of the cabinet, then I have to re-place the other teacups to form a pattern. One of the things I could relate to in the film "Mozart and the Whale" was the male character´s reaction when his living space was disrupted.

I have been attached to objects at times, but often to strange things. For the longest time, as a teenager, I was attached to a certain brush. It was a pink, broken, small brush- looked almost like a dolly brush- which I found somewhere, unclaimed. I became totally attached to this brush! I had it with me always, and would only brush my hair with that brush. Somehow, at the time I had the impression that this was a magic brush, and it gave me good luck. One day I lost it, and I was devastated...luckily, it turned up again. When I was younger, I felt like objects were alive, or that they had certain powers that affected me- "good" or "evil", etc. I feel this way less so now...hmmm, maybe the rest of the world has slowly drummed something out of me...