Can you talk and watch?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm seeing a lot of advice about looking at the audience when speaking to see their reactions, but when I talk, I'm totally involved in trying to remember the right words in real time, and see nothing. I think that there are other people whose speech is almost entirely determined not by their own ideas, but by what the listeners want to hear, fine tuned on the fly. Where do you fit on that spectrum?

I used to be able to read, speak and type different things simultaneously.
I don't believe I'm still able to do that, I can't even read a news article with video playing in the background anymore.

Absolutely not.
I could barely say anything longer than three minutes without a script.
I need to think in silence before I say something a little longer.
It was difficult for me to even just think while talking, not to mention the need to pay attention to other people's reactions.

No I can't talk and watch at the same time, not easily anyway. Maybe for a very short time. It's even harder for me to listen to somebody in the room while I'm watching something (say) on a TV screen, because listening seems to take up more of my brain than talking. It's not particularly easy for me even to watch video pictures and listen to the soundtrack at the same time, though I seem to manage that to some extent.

I think basically I hyperfocus on doing one particular thing, so that doing anything else at the same time is difficult. So for example, with watching a video, I often miss the words because I'm too busy looking at the pictures.

I don't. Not very well.
It won't help that sometimes my auditory channels when unreliable and distorted while at it. Everything just becomes a guessing game.


It's never the case when I have a working EF.
A working EF gave me multiple processing channels.

No stupid uncertainty and feel like everything is a guessing game half the time because of having less than 1/4th processing channels of information.
No more 'limited channels'; can talk, listen and watch and also more.
No need to do manual transitions or dropping one processing over in favor of translating thought to speech and recalling what to say.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

No, my visual and audio processing it far too slow. It makes keeping up in any conversation almost impossible. Talking and watching an audience would be very difficult if not impossible. an audience of one or 2 is do-able if the people I am talking with are patient and not in a hurry. Against background noises of any sort, no can do.

Let me rephrase this question a little differently.
Can you talk and drive at the same time.
As an Aspie this is one of my weaknesses. When I drive a car I must fully concentrate on driving.
Many years ago when I was young and began driving, I had a few accidents.
But when I began to focus on only driving I became an excellent driver. Since that time I have driven around 1,000,000 miles accident free.
So whereas NTs can perform a variety of things while they are driving such as

talking on their cell phones
putting on makeup
communicating over the internet
writing
etc.

I am not able to perform these acts. It is like the kiss of death.

I actually changed my driving habits at the time to concentrate on everything around me (360 degrees) and to find potential accidents before they happened and take immediate corrective action to avoid them.

Not good at this, brain can't seem to handle well trying to do two things at once like this.
With the driving thing, when I do drive which isn't much at all, I don't like trying to talk and drive, too hard to focus and concentrate.
Heck I cannot even listen to music with words in it while writing or I will get all messed up on what I'm writing and start trying to write what I'm hearing. Similar with reading, I get too distracted.

I'm a one track mind lol.

I remember for a job (call center) that I applied for, they gave a test for I think it was how well you can multitask and use working memory (look at this, then do this other thing, then recall the previous thing and do XYZ with it). Failed so bad at it, could not possibly keep up with it. Did not get the job lol.

I can but other people can't. That's why I'm always being shushed all the time.