ASD vs. NT detail-orientation

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You know, some folks have described us Aspies as having significant orientation to detail (at the apparent trade-off of noticing the big picture), but I've noticed NT's tend to have great detail orientation in terms of the more socially "aesthetic" stuff that I am lacking, for example, on more than one occasion in the past, I had an NT guy tell me that I should consider carrying less in my wallet - noticing the bulge in my left pocket. He told me it looked weird. It wasn't much of a bulge - which I told him - but he insisted that "people will notice, and it looks funny." More oblique comments I got were to the effect of "hey, it seems like you carry your whole life in there" or "are ya looking for someone to rob ya?" - this was before my diagnosis in 2001, so I didn't read the hidden meaning that they were suggesting that I carry less in my wallet because the bulge looks weird.

BUT when it comes to forensic stuff on TV, financial data, technical data...I find that I can be VERY detail oriented...and that stuff actually yields something of substance, unlike some silly cosmetic detail on a person's belongings.

I couldn't care less about things like if the colour of a person's belt matches their shoes, or a wallet bulge, and I don't have the desire to engage in that level of detail orientation. But from my Aspie point of view, it seems like NTs are more detail oriented in this regard, and I would invite them to look at the bigger picture as to what really matters about that person.

I know with accents, I notice big differences, but, more subtle ones, I don't notice unless they are socially significant.

My guess is, that, with NTs and noticing details, it's that kind of thing. They are more likely to notice details that are socially significant. (And a lot could be said about details that shouldn't be socially significant but are.)

It depend upon what is the matter at hand. We tend to worry about functional details while many NT's tend to worry about aesthetic details. I think for NT's it is all about how things look rather than how they work.

My brother says the same thing about my keys. I have about 30 keys on my ring that I use regularly.
He calls it my weight set. I have all my keys with me and have access to them when I need them. I always carry them with me in case i get a call while I'm out somewhere. If I have them on separate key rings there is more I have to collect when going somewhere and more things that I might forget.

Yes, I think NTs definitely notice many more social details. My brain is too busy focusing on the really important things in life - individual tufts of carpet fiber and individual wood grains on furniture - to worry about people around me looking "weird".

I don't know - once my mum brought home a picture to put up on the wall. It was an oil-painted picture of a derelict house, but looked nice for a picture. It had a lot of details on it, but I only saw the derelict house and nothing else. Then my brother, who is NT, walked by and suddenly saw a little ghost in one of the windows and said, ''look - there's a ghost there!'' and he barely even looked at the picture as he passed. I was like, ''oh yes - I never saw that.'' I never noticed the blackish-purple colour of the sky in the background either until my mum said how eerie the sky looked.