I have a hard time remembering/reproducing/summarizing information

[Hypnalis]

@AuroraBorealis

Perhaps you don't conceptualize using one of the majority approaches.

* Some people report thinking in words
* Some people report thinking in pictures
* There's at least one other style (mine is different), and perhaps more

Something else that should be better known: Memory is complicated of course, with different aspects.

One aspect splits between "recognition memory" and "reconstruction memory". Everyone needs and uses both, but to different degrees.
* Recognition Memory is what most use for faces. You don't remember the whole face, and can't draw it, but most people can reliability recognize quite a large number of individuals' faces
* Artists and Orators (among many others) need to actively use "reconstruction memory". Active meaning they need to create new "high-rez" memories.

I'm not sure if it's the same thing or just similar, but you may have heard something like "to really understand something you need to teach it". The similarity with recognition (c.f. the student level) vs reconstruction (the teacher's level" is clear.

As you what you describe, you're probably reading for understanding, and stopping there. If you want to remember something for later, you need to do more. It's trainable, in different ways. By far the easiest is to write it down on paper. Keep the paper, but don't expect you'll always need to read it. Processing something again in as many different modes as possible reinforces the memory.
There's a similarly simple method for something you want to convey in words, but while it's easy to explain and perform, most people don't want to do it. I CBA trying to teach it online any more.

A reminder - there are two core ideas here, not one:
* Conceptualization: Visual; verbal; other (probably multiple)
* Memory: Recognition; Reconstruction

Either one could be relevant for you without the other, or both, or neither. This is a very complex area, and my interest is strictly limited to what's useful to me. That leaves a lot I don't know that might be useful to you.

FWIW I'm an "other" for conceptualization, and learning about what I remember and how I remember it has been very useful.

 

[Hypnalis]

I think men that are threatened by intelligent women has a problem with their own manliness and should consider seeking help for that.

Try switching M and F in that, and ask yourself how you'd want to respond, and why.

 

[Misty Avich]

Don't most people know more facts about something if it's an interest of their's?

 

[Hypnalis]

Don't most people know more facts about something if it's an interest of theirs?

Definitely. It produces the same effect as "reprocessing in multiple modes", but with much less work.

Something else that's always present: the more you know about a domain, the easier it is to contextualize new information, which in turn makes it a lot easier to remember.

Long-term memory is associative - the more links something new has to existing long-term memories, the more easily and effectively it "sticks".

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Don't most people know more facts about something if it's an interest of their's?

I guess they do, but I notice a very, very big discrepancy between the two. Like, if it's a momentary interest and I hyperfixate on it, I remember everything - or at least a lot. If it's not a momentary interest, even if I find it interesting, I'm just not hyperfixating on it, I remember nothing. Like, practically zero.
I might be thinking too much about this, but it just doesn't seem proportionate, compared to the people around me and compared to my general intelligence.

 

[Misty Avich]

The only thing I've ever had a seemingly special interest in was certain but random people, but not sure if it counts as a special interest if it's of people that aren't celebrities, more like a obsession. But the obsession took over my whole mind and life, and I did everything to make myself known by them, by becoming friends with them (trying to BE them if they were women, and trying to flirt with them if they were men). It became more important than school, grades, friends, everything. I guess it became like stalking, because I wanted to know everything about them and even just seeing them for 2 seconds caused such glee and enjoyment for me. But I was not intending on causing any harm, although they didn't know that. They felt threatened and I did get into trouble when I was a teenager. So stupid and embarrassing of me.
I don't think I've ever had an obsession like that since. I've had interests, and I still do now, but it's not obsessive and I don't sit and learn everything about them.
I love doing art, but I'm not very interested in art, if that makes sense. I like drawing and colouring and crafting, but I find art in general boring, like going to art galleries or learning about art. So I guess it's more of a mild hobby.
I also love rats but that's because I own them as pets and they are interesting, the way they're so similar to cats in their behaviour, and are also like humans socially. But I talk to other people about rats on a rat website I go on, and as far as I know they're probably all NTs, but they seem to know a lot more about rats than I do.

But you don't have to be autistic to be interested in stuff other than sport, gossiping or the Kardashians.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

I feel a bit frustrated right now, but that's got nothing to do with you. It's more my general feeling when talking to people. I feel like the more I try to explain what I mean, the less people understand me.

It's not what I'm interested in that concerns me. I'm interested in a lot of things, and I'm completely aware that the nature of your interests don't necessarily have anything to do with being autistic.
I also relate to your point - I love reading, sometimes obsessively, but I'm not really interested in the authors or the background of the story. Same thing with music - I love listening to music, but I don't really care about the backgrounds or the artists.

I just feel like my brain is a sponge when it comes to very particular interests, but a sieve when I try to inform myself about anything else. And as soon as I try summarizing or reproducing anything, it's like my mind's blocked and doesn't want to work with me, even though I understood the topic at the time of reading about it.
It's easier when I try to recall things while I write. Somehow, in written form, more comes out. But when I want to talk about a topic I read up on, everything's gone unless it's something I've been studying for weeks, if not months or years. Not even like giving a speech or explaining it to someone, simply talking about it in a conversation with someone else.

 

[Misty Avich]

I feel a bit frustrated right now, but that's got nothing to do with you. It's more my general feeling when talking to people. I feel like the more I try to explain what I mean, the less people understand me.

It's not what I'm interested in that concerns me. I'm interested in a lot of things, and I'm completely aware that the nature of your interests don't necessarily have anything to do with being autistic.
I also relate to your point - I love reading, sometimes obsessively, but I'm not really interested in the authors or the background of the story. Same thing with music - I love listening to music, but I don't really care about the backgrounds or the artists.

I just feel like my brain is a sponge when it comes to very particular interests, but a sieve when I try to inform myself about anything else. And as soon as I try summarizing or reproducing anything, it's like my mind's blocked and doesn't want to work with me, even though I understood the topic at the time of reading about it.
It's easier when I try to recall things while I write. Somehow, in written form, more comes out. But when I want to talk about a topic I read up on, everything's gone unless it's something I've been studying for weeks, if not months or years. Not even like giving a speech or explaining it to someone, simply talking about it in a conversation with someone else.

I understand that, I guess we all have different experiences.
My experience is more ADHD-related.

 

[Xinyta]

I feel a bit frustrated right now, but that's got nothing to do with you. It's more my general feeling when talking to people. I feel like the more I try to explain what I mean, the less people understand me.

It's not what I'm interested in that concerns me. I'm interested in a lot of things, and I'm completely aware that the nature of your interests don't necessarily have anything to do with being autistic.
I also relate to your point - I love reading, sometimes obsessively, but I'm not really interested in the authors or the background of the story. Same thing with music - I love listening to music, but I don't really care about the backgrounds or the artists.

I just feel like my brain is a sponge when it comes to very particular interests, but a sieve when I try to inform myself about anything else. And as soon as I try summarizing or reproducing anything, it's like my mind's blocked and doesn't want to work with me, even though I understood the topic at the time of reading about it.
It's easier when I try to recall things while I write. Somehow, in written form, more comes out. But when I want to talk about a topic I read up on, everything's gone unless it's something I've been studying for weeks, if not months or years. Not even like giving a speech or explaining it to someone, simply talking about it in a conversation with someone else.

I wish there was a 'this post' reaction, because this is on point with how I function too. Unless I really am interested in it, I can't remember it worth crap if I don't constantly beat the information into my face. Figuratively speaking anyway.