Autistics more likely to watch people's mouths?

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I try to look at mouths when listening to people. I don't know if it helps. I have great difficulty keeping track of what is being said, and often have to ask people to repeat something they have said. I wish I knew of a better technique, but looking at mouths seems to help.

If people are trying to tell me something nowadays, and they tell me to look at them. (Like my ex-boss used to do.) then maybe I will for a split second, but I usually say "I can look at you or I can listen to you. You decide."

If a person's hands are moving I might fixate on that instead.

Photon, I generally find that if miserable people have happy voices, then they are usually trying to cover their misery. This kind of hidden sadness tends to pass me by completely. Don't know why. It just does.

Here's another one. Do you ever find that people say you look tired or down, when you are neither. Because perhaps your body language isn't "right" for someone who is -- for the moment -- just happily mellow?

I have always looked at mouths and not realised it until I started training for ABA therapy and then was told that I should be teaching the children to look at eyes! I just find it makes more sense, the mouth is where the speech comes from. I suppose now that I am more aware I look at the face as a whole and the eyes.

I do that too; its easier to concentrate that way when someone talks to me.
I didnt know it looked so strange untill my bf noticed a couple of days ago.

I didn't realize that i did this until my ex-boyfriend complained about it a few years ago in high school. He asked if i was always thinking about kissing him or something

i do this...

that was one of the key factoids that tipped me off about my probable AS... i was reading an artle on autism and it mentioned that... one trip to the internet and here i am!

i had always thought i picked this up because i know many foreign people and found it easier to hear their words by doing so.

I look at the mouth because that is where the sound comes out.

I don't think I watch people's mouths too much. I tend to look either out the window, or at some object, maybe something I'm holding in my hands. It helps if I happen to be drinking tea, then I can examine the mug; it's also nice to have something like a chain or keys or some other small thing I can play with and rest my eyes on at the same time.

I prefer looking at the person's hair instead of the mouth because if someone tells me that I'm looking at the mouth, it means that I want to make out with them, especially when a girl is talking to me.

Does anyone have this problem?

I look at someone straight in the eyes if I know that person well enough & comfortable with them.

I've forced myself to make eye contact, but I'm still not totally comfortable with it (and I don't think I'll ever be). Come to think of it, I might be subconsciously shifting my gaze to the speaker's mouth, but I'll need to think about that the next time I'm in a conversation.

I never noticed but now that I think about it, I do sometimes. But I also do something kind of weird when I have to be serious and look someone in the eye. That is I use, say, my right eye, to look into their left eye. (My left, their eye.) I have no idea why I do this. I don't really know what messages are being communicated by the eyes, so I try not to communicate anything, because I don't know what I'm "saying".

Without conditioning myself to look a peoples faces as I spoke to them I did even look at their mouths. I fact I tried to keep the conversation as brief as possible and just look down at their shoe and if I looked up I tended to just look around their hair and glance at their mouths and look down again.

Now I have trained myself to look straight into their eyes as best as I could. Even then it feels somewhat unatural to me and I just look around the eyes such as the eyelashes, eyebrows or fringe of their hair and then look away to someone elses eyelashes as I am speaking to them and I do not realize I am doing it.

Mouths usually have to be very attractive looking like with Julia Roberts or tennis star, Venus Williams if I fix my gaze on them. I love larger mouths especially on women.

I look at the mouth when I'm talking to someone most of the time.

It's easier to understand what they are saying, and it also keeps you looking at their face without having to look them in the eyes.

Today, I paid a lot of attention to what I do when listening to or communicating with others, and it is indeed true; I tend to look at their mouths much more than their eyes, even when it's a one-on-one conference. I'm trying to imagine why exactly that is, though... I suppose aspies care more about the message than the expression associated with it?