What is this exactly?

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I have one issue I don't know if aspie or if it's actually the opposite... I fail to notice changes/details in my environment that others seem to pick up on. For example, my husband grew a full beard and he shaved it off yesterday but didn't say anything about it and I don't notice until this afternoon...

Details can include stuff like not noticing what people are wearing for example. Like if somebody talked to me and asked me later what color was their shirt I wouldn't remember.

I also tend to have a "verbal" memory... I can perfectly describe something that happened in the past with great detail but if it was far enough in the past I have very little visual memory of the situation, just bits and pieces.

I wouldn't notice what a person is wearing, or if they shaved and cut their hair. It's because I barely make eye contact or look at people. If I do look at them I'm staring at their eyes to be polite, and I can't attend to other details. It's normal to have a spotty sense of memory too. Most of my long term memories are based on sensations (sights, sounds, smells), rather than actual events or conversations. They are like split-second flashbacks rather than episodic narratives. I can remember what I was thinking during certain events when I was little, but I can't remember the actual events. It's because we live in our heads.

I do notice details that aren't related to people, because I'm not afraid to make eye contact with inanimate things.

I agree that it sounds like it's the opposite what ASD tends to describe, but I do do the same thing, and I do think that it is ASD related even if the official descriptions tend to suggest the opposite.

I think that what it is is that it's a combination of two things:
1) Difficulty multitasking: You're focused on talking to the person or whatever, so you don't have a chance to focus on what's changed.
2) The details that you care about aren't the details that other people care about. You do notice details, but not the same ones as other people think you should notice.
3) Getting so focused on one detail that's changed, so you can't notice the other thing that's changed.


One time, I was at my parent's house for Christmas, and they asked me what had changed about the living room. I looked around, and did manage to successfully pick out one detail of the room that had changed, but it wasn't the answer they were looking for.

It turned out that the room was basically a mirror image of what it had been before. All the furniture that had previously been on one side of the room was now on the other side of the room. I noticed a detail of the room had changed, but failed to notice that the entire room had changed!

I can definitely relate to not noticing details or changes to details in my environment.

I'm lousy at noticing changes or remembering details. If anyone ever wants me to be a witness to an accident, I'd have to admit I have a poor memory for things like this. I can look directly at someone (say, a "perp") and not be able to identify them later.

I couldn't say if it is autism, but it's definitely me.

If people change something about their appearance I will either not notice at all or I won't recognize them.

My father got rid of his mustache and I didn't notice; a former classmate cut her hair short and I had no idea who she was. Of course, I'm not good with faces at all, likely have a degree of prosopagnosia.

I am so unlikely to notice changes in my environment that it surprises my mother when I see that something has been changed. My father is even worse though.

I have that problem but some of it is probably because I have a visual processing disorder. I do have a low vision disorder but I also do not notice things I can see well. For example I could be looking for something that I can see well & look rite at it but not notice it's there. I also have a very hard time recognizing faces even when i can see them well & believe I have face blindness.

That is not an ASD thing. Temple Grandin used to say that all Aspies/Autists are visual thinkers. That is not true. Many are not. One of my best friends is Autistic/Aspie and he cannot visualize at all, not even a little bit. He can look in the mirror but once he turns away from the mirror, he has no idea what he looks like. That is simply because his mind is incapable of making visualizations. I think you are in a similar situation. If your memory is verbal and not visual, you will not be able to retain visualizations. It might be possible that you can't make them at all like my friend. And if your memory is not visual, visual aspects of people's appearance will not be important to you so you will not tend to notice them. My friend is the exact same way. I think that is all it is.

Usually I will not really notice or remember what someone was wearing. But I will notice and remember something like a mole or crooked tooth or some minor detail like that.

What the OP is describing may be aphantasia. A condition where visualising stuff is impossible.