Seeing patterns

[Misty Avich]

I was discussing this in another thread but felt it was derailing the thread too much so thought I'd start my own thread on the subject.

I heard that autistic people can have good pattern recognition but not social pattern recognition. Funnily enough I have always had this skill socially, but not systematically. Like I find it difficult to work out what date it will be in 5 days time, for example. I just have to look on the calendar because it takes a lot of brain power to work it out.

It also explains why I find technology hard to grasp, unless it's a task that's based on common sense. Or I think I can put together a puzzle or a piece of furniture, only to realise that I can't do it when following a logical approach.

Is this weird for an Aspie, or is it just my ADHD coming forward here? ADHD is my "dominant" disorder, while Asperger's just seems secondary, or like a co-morbid.

How's your pattern recognition? Social or systematic or otherwise?

 

[FayetheAspie]

My results show that I am advanced at visual pattern recognition. I tend to pretty good at noticing when something is a different size shape, shade ect. from other items in a series. I am also fairly good at word puzzles and certain styles of riddles. I frequently pick up on inconsistencies in a person's story when they tell the same story different ways different times in a manner in which the two or more versions are incompatible.

 

[NB79]

i don't know if its pattern recognition, but it seem autistic people sometimes are good at finding details in things that others miss. Like an ability to focus on things and discovering truths about it.

 

[FayetheAspie]

As far as details go, I often notice visual details that others miss.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Part of my job is interpreting mechanical ventilator waveforms (pressure, volume, and flow) as the gas enters and exits the lungs. To be quite frank, and after nearly some 40 years of this, I have not found or even heard of my equal in this. Every possible source I have found on the internet, journal articles, and videos demonstrate a rudimentary understanding, at best. It's easier for me to understand waveforms than it is to explain them to someone in words. Most people in my profession have a very basic understanding, which drives me absolutely nuts, as I don't know how to do my job without this understanding.

I also seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to recognizing traffic patterns ahead of me when driving, knowing when an accident is most likely to occur, having some sense that driver A isn't paying attention to driver B, and so on.

I am the one who, on a hike on a trail, will find the tiny green bug or the little flower tucked in the bushes, the tracks in the mud, etc. Everyone else I am with is with their head up and looking at the broader scenery. I tend to lag behind taking photos of the details everyone else misses.

I can drive perfectly fine in the rain without the windshield wipers on. Drives my wife nuts.

I also have visual snow syndrome (VSS) where my visual field is pixelated like a poor digital photo, which should suggest that I might be LESS inclined to pick up details, but doesn't seem to affect this in my case.

 

[TBRS1]

There are different ways in which people mentally store information; for example "linearly" (this connects to that and that connects to something else), or "categorically" (this is this, that is that, and something else is something else).

If other people are like me, they store information "oceanically" (this and that and something else all mix together at their fuzzy edges and can be connected and recombine in infinite ways).

For people who have oceanic minds, EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE is ALWAYS a part of a pattern.

I don't know if oceanic thinking is more common in autistic people or not, though.

 

[FayetheAspie]

I am the one who, on a hike on a trail, will find the tiny green bug or the little flower tucked in the bushes, the tracks in the mud, etc. Everyone else I am with is with their head up and looking at the broader scenery. I tend to lag behind taking photos of the details everyone else misses.

Yes. This is VERY relatable. These are good examples of what I meant about visual details.

 

[FayetheAspie]

I also have visual snow syndrome (VSS) where my visual field is pixelated like a poor digital photo, which should suggest that I might be LESS inclined to pick up details, but doesn't seem to affect this in my case.

I have mild visual snow symptoms myself (though I am not officially diagnosed with VSS). It does not affect my ability to see details either.

 

[Misty Avich]

Yes. This is VERY relatable. These are good examples of what I meant about visual details.

I'm too impatient to do that. Like when I'm in a store I need to see the bigger picture to navigate myself around, while my husband dawdles and then stops to look at everything, including bargains.

Usually I miss things more than other people. For example there are often rats at work, and I love rats, but I'm the only one who hasn't actually seen one yet, while everyone else has seen many.

When I was a child I had difficulties with constructive toys such as Lego or puzzles. But I think it might be due to lack of patience, geometrical skills and focus. I even had difficulty building little McDonald's toys, but not due to lack of hand-eye coordination. In fact I'm not sure about my hand-eye coordination skills. I'm bad at using knives like when peeling or cutting potatoes, but I'm good at writing and colouring neatly and at cutting out fiddly shapes with scissors.

 

[FayetheAspie]

I don't generally browse much in a store most of the time myself and often feel very bored when others with me do but I notice things like the dent in the can or the piece of tape stuck to the corner of the shelf.

 

[Misty Avich]

I only notice small things like that if I'm looking for them, but even then I don't always notice. I remember when we first got our rats we had to get all the accessories first, and one of them was a drinking bottle. I found one on the shelf and when we were queuing up I suddenly noticed a small orange object inside it. It was a little plastic carrot used as a way to see where the water is up to in the bottle or something. My husband said he noticed it straight away and thought I had but I said I hadn't, even though I was the one who picked it off the shelf. Nothing to do with my eyesight, it just didn't register straight away.