Not noticing things - is that an Aspie thing?

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fefe333
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10 Aug 2012, 2:57 am

this happens to me all the time. Today I was looking for the lemonade pitcher in the fridge, and I couldn't find it. So I asked my mom if she threw it out and she said its still in there.I opened the fridge and there it was, sitting in the middle of the top shelf.

I can never find anything because I'm so busy thinking or processing something else.


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10 Aug 2012, 3:37 am

FMX wrote:
Sometimes I'll notice things that nobody else notices and sometimes I won't notice things that everyone else does. I don't know whether that's an aspie thing or not. It may be that each person just notices different things.

hanyo wrote:
Why would you think the bag being there was for you to take out? If I noticed it I might think they put it there for their own convenience to take out the next time they went out. That is what I would think in my house. I'd even worry that if I took it out they might be mad. Maybe they were going to put more garbage in it before it went out.


Yes, that's totally what I would think! I hate it when people do me "favours" like that, especially throwing things out for me. Hey, if I want to throw something out, I will. I equally hate when people expect me to read their minds and do such favours for them. Sure I could try to guess what they want, but I could be wrong and why use such an unreliable system when they could... oh, I don't know... just ask?!


Exactly, I think so too. My mother knows I'm bad at picking up nonverbal stuff, yet she expects me to read everything from her eyes. I told her a million times she should just tell me what she wants me to do.



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12 Aug 2012, 10:33 pm

Filipendula wrote:
I definitely sometimes fail to see something right in front of me and totally relate to the "not where we expect it" part. However I keep reading about sensory overload and this is something I really don't feel I experience. What would overload in this context feel like?

I.e. You look for something where it should be and don't see it because it's a short distance to the right and you're already overloaded from searching. What is the internal/emotional/cognitive experience of that? Please somebody tell me, I'd love to understand it better.

Thanks!


It is hard to describe. I don't think "overload" always means you have a strong feeling of being overwhelmed. In some instances, it can be a mild - almost unconscious - discomfort. For example, I only recently realised that I don't look at crowds when I walk through a busy public place - I look at the ground, the buildings at the side, or the sky. By experimenting, I discovered that it is mildly unpleasant for me to look at a crowd of people moving about in every direction - I think my brain is trying to follow all the movements at once, so it just feels a bit annoying or irritating or uncomfortable to watch. So I may glance quickly at the crowd to check that I am not about to walk into somebody, and then look back at the ground or somewhere simple and safe.

I suspect it is the same when looking for objects in a "busy" environment - e.g. on a crowded desk. We see so many things that our mind finds it mildly unpleasant to look at every single object in turn.

Perhaps you should experiment. I found today, for example, that when I was walking through a city arcade I felt very tense, except when I walked into one area and found far fewer people, and then I suddenly felt much less tense. But when I am walking to a shop for lunch, I might not notice the tension because I am thinking intently about buying lunch, but later when I walked into an empty area of the arcade after buying my lunch, I did notice the sudden drop in tension, because I wasn't as highly focused on something.

So "overload" might be a subtle increase in tension that we can overlook, but not escape the effects of.



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17 Dec 2013, 8:15 pm

Sanctus wrote:
Sometimes, when I got out of the bathroom, my mother would ask me whether the washing machine was still running. I could never tell her. I just didn't notice it at all, though you'd think that noone could possibly not hear whether or not there's a machine running. I just didn't notice it. Or there was a bag of trash standing on top of the stairs so I would take it out, but I just didn't see it! My mother got angry with me and asked why I hadn't done it, and my only answer was: I didn't notice. Of course she didn't believe me.

Other examples are that sometimes, while driving in a city, I'd ask "is that shop there new?" And my mother just gave me a weird look and said "that's been here since you were born." Or I'd look at a person and suddenly I wasn't sure whether that person had always been wearing glasses or if they were new. I'm also bad at noticing changes on a person's outside, like new hairstyles.


I'm exactly like this, in fact, the exact same scenario happened between me, my Mum and the washing machine a week or two ago.

I actually agree with what someone else said about it being a hyperfocus thing. We're so caught up in our own minds and our own thoughts, we don't notice what's going on around us. I often think about it like I'm walking around on autopilot. I'm sure that's right. I'll be so caught up in my thoughts, I just don't notice the outside world.

Also, I can go into a department store with someone - we get separated - I look for them - they'll be practically standing in front of me waving their arms around and I still won't see them - even though I'm looking for them/right at them. Go figure.


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18 Dec 2013, 5:49 am

Yes I am like this from hyperfocus or zoning out which can be caused by Aspergers


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18 Dec 2013, 6:24 am

Does anyone else also experience this?

I'll be deeply lost in reading something on the Internet to do with my Special Interest and Mum will ask me a question. It's like she rips me out of another world. I hear what she says but I have to sit there and think about what she actually said for a while before it sinks in, makes sense and I think of a response. It's like I've got to continually repeat her words in my mind until I can understand what it is she's actually saying.
It's also very annoying. I keep cool with her but I do let her now that it's very disturbing by my attitude and the fact that it takes me a while to transition from (being so deep into) one task to another.


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18 Dec 2013, 7:11 am

I have object-blindness, but only when people ask me to pass them something or get me to look at something.

I also have trouble looking for Christmas or birthday presents in shops. My mum has an enjoyment in colouring in (in adult colouring books), and I was inclined to get her a couple of colouring in books for Christmas. I looked in all the possible shops that sell things like colouring books but can't find one anywhere. I told my friend, and she says I'm probably not looking in the right place in the shops, or not looking hard enough. I know she is right, so she's going to help me tomorrow - and then she'll probably point out a whole section of colouring books where I have looked a number of times before. :roll: :lol:

But I think the reason being is I get stressed if I get other customers in shops standing too close to me. I just get distracted and can't concentrate on looking for what I want until they have gone. I hate it when somebody's standing right next to me looking at where I'm looking, and then they suddenly reach their arm across my face to get the item that sitting exactly right in front of my face. It's like a Murphy's Law thing what always seems to happen to me in shops.


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18 Dec 2013, 7:38 am

I don't notice what's going on around me when i'm working and I work in a very busy and lively office.

I'm quite fortunate though, in the sense that I do ask for updates on all the gossip. So I don't really miss out on too much.


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18 Dec 2013, 7:46 am

I always find if someone points something out to me and I can't see it they get annoyed with me.
So I pretend to see it.



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18 Dec 2013, 7:52 am

Joe90 wrote:
I hate it when somebody's standing right next to me looking at where I'm looking, and then they suddenly reach their arm across my face to get the item that sitting exactly right in front of my face. It's like a Murphy's Law thing what always seems to happen to me in shops.


Why? What do you think they're going to do? They're probably not even aware that you're there! Most people are too caught up in their own thoughts and what they're doing to notice anyone else.


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18 Dec 2013, 8:24 am

well I'm always thinking about things, mostly sonic scenarios so i cant concentrate on everything else, and i would forget to do things or not notice big changes in the house. sometimes, if I'm not distracted, i can notice the tiniest thins


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ouroborosUK
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18 Dec 2013, 11:28 am

Sanctus wrote:
Sometimes, when I got out of the bathroom, my mother would ask me whether the washing machine was still running. I could never tell her. I just didn't notice it at all, though you'd think that noone could possibly not hear whether or not there's a machine running. I just didn't notice it. Or there was a bag of trash standing on top of the stairs so I would take it out, but I just didn't see it! My mother got angry with me and asked why I hadn't done it, and my only answer was: I didn't notice. Of course she didn't believe me.

Other examples are that sometimes, while driving in a city, I'd ask "is that shop there new?" And my mother just gave me a weird look and said "that's been here since you were born." Or I'd look at a person and suddenly I wasn't sure whether that person had always been wearing glasses or if they were new. I'm also bad at noticing changes on a person's outside, like new hairstyles.


I tend to do the same kind of things. The example with the shop happened a few times when I was younger. And I always fail to notice haircuts or that kind of things (unless the new cut is something really wild or the person completely changed hair color).


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18 Dec 2013, 5:38 pm

I have this problem; there have been several times when my friends have walked past me, saying my name and trying to attract my attention, and I never noticed until they were practically on top of me. I always thought my lack of attention to things normal people notice but simultaneous hyperfocus on irrelevancies (ie dates on which incidents occurred, the page number I left off on in the book I was reading last week) were a little incongruous, but I suppose it makes sense from an aspie standpoint.


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18 Dec 2013, 5:46 pm

It is a matter of extreme focus and compartmentalization. I can only do one thing at a time, being unable to multitask. Some things, even obvious stuff, gets missed.



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19 Dec 2013, 1:13 am

It is funny because I can notice and register tiny things and very small details but not register big things. I may see them but it does not register in my mind that they are there. It's like a miss the connection somehow.


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19 Dec 2013, 1:15 am

one-A-N wrote:
People talk about "male blindness" (men not seeing domestic jobs that need to be done), but I think "Aspie blindness" also exists.

Our brains are so overwhelmed trying to process all the detail that we notice, that it shuts down and skips stuff - even big stuff. But it does notice some things - and gets very twitched about them if they are different (not the way we expected).

Because we are likely to be overwhelmed by detail, we tend to focus on what we expect: so if something is not where we expect it, we may not be able to find it even though it is in plain sight. We only look where we expect the object to be, because we are overloaded when we try to search for it anywhere else. Similarly, if something is found where we were expecting no such thing (e.g an object has been moved that we are used to seeing somewhere else) then we may become anxious or uncomfortable. We handle confusing detail by expecting things to be a particular way.

NTs have a hard time realising that the world really does look different to us than it looks to them. They think that because they see something, everybody must see it as clearly as they do. They really don't get neurodiversity much of the time, because they haven't grown up in a world that constantly told them that "everyone else" thought differently to them.
I can definitely relate to this.


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