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Do you miss seeing things that are right there in plain sight?

grommet said:
That is exactly what it is like. It does not matter what it looks like, how large or obvious, my brain will not recognize no matter how hard I look. For a while I tried using Post-It notes on the walls to remind me of things but I could not see them. I have to leave an object in my way to make sure I notice it.

My same brain though will notice the tiniest things, too many to list. Recognizing metals by their surface pattern and color, being able to instantly recognize stainless steel and other alloys.

Watching a TV show I quickly spotted a new manilla rope on what was supposed to be an antique because I saw the fine threads sticking out on its surface and they would have been worn away on a used rope. It goes on and on. I see patterns, mistakes in manufacture, the slightest color changes. I almost always notice the heads of screws anywhere I go and whether they are damaged which I intuit means they were quickly/badly installed without a proper clutch setting on the power driver.

I cannot however see mail, food, notes, my wall calendar etcetera. Sigh.
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Yep. NAILED IT! I remember when I was younger asking my mom where the box of cereal was. It was on the table, in plain view, right in front of my face. I couldn't see it.
 
I read the thread title as if you miss anything in plain site, not that you miss things in plain site and bump.

I used to bump into things as a child because of dyspraxia and I was seen as a show off for it so I guess kids in my school thought I was doing it on purpose to get attention and thought I was literally running into them on purpose or walking into them on purpose or causing them to bump into me on purpose when I would stop walking. This was one of the things I hated about myself and I knew I wasn't doing it on purpose but I couldn't convince my school mates this really was unintentional.
 
Progster said:
Walking along, looking down at the cracks in the pavement (sidewalk) or whatever, and don't even see the lamp post bang in front of me - ouch!!

If someone moves my coffee jar by even just a few centimeters, I spend the next 20 minutes looking for it.
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This reminds me of max's chocolate, a theory of mind exercise.

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Max would lose it but some think he'd find it right away.
 
My nose. Most of the time I don't remember about it, but then I get a little spot of dirt there and I can't stop seeing it for the next few days...

But seriously, yes. I have good eyes, but, I tell you, lamp posts are related to chameleons and just jump out at you suddenly when you least expect them to. Maybe they are haunted by poltergeists - that would make sense.

(joke)
 
YES!!! I believe the reason is that we look at details and sometimes fail to see the whole. I remember years ago when I was studying psychology, the professor had all of the students participate in a study on Gestalt psychology. Apparently my results were thrown out because it didn't follow the patterns of the 90 other students, and was so different that it was messing up the average.
 
WeirdoGuy said:
YES!!! I believe the reason is that we look at details and sometimes fail to see the whole. I remember years ago when I was studying psychology, the professor had all of the students participate in a study on Gestalt psychology. Apparently my results were thrown out because it didn't follow the patterns of the 90 other students, and was so different that it was messing up the average.
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Oh wow. I would have wanted to know more about that. Throwing out the results because they mess up the average seems like it would definitely lead to inaccurate overall data, if it's done often enough.
 
SDRSpark said:
Oh wow. I would have wanted to know more about that. Throwing out the results because they mess up the average seems like it would definitely lead to inaccurate overall data, if it's done often enough.
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Ignoring such outlier values is common in stats.
 
I've been known to reach for one thing but grab the wrong thing at the store. I.E., I reached out for the can of peas, and when I got home from the store, I pulled green beans out of the shopping bag.
 
Yeshuasdaughter said:
I've been known to reach for one thing but grab the wrong thing at the store. I.E., I reached out for the can of peas, and when I got home from the store, I pulled green beans out of the shopping bag.
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This. My brain and what I actually do when I move aren't always the same thing. Sometimes it is like I slip out of sync, my brain thinks something and my body is on a delay and can't quite catch up. By the time my hand reaches for something my brain already decided on something else but it does what my brain was thinking before it changed its mind.
 
ND reaction times are.usually much longer than those of a NT. This may explain this at least in part.
 
I used to analyze and find things really easily when I was a child, to the point it annoyed me that other people couldn't find things as fast as me. Now I'm the opposite and don't understand how people can just find things in a few seconds. It's probably karma getting me for being a little prick about it. lol
 
Yeshuasdaughter said:
I've been known to reach for one thing but grab the wrong thing at the store. I.E., I reached out for the can of peas, and when I got home from the store, I pulled green beans out of the shopping bag.
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I'm not sure if this is due to not seeing, or due to the fact that we have issues with our proprioception. Our perception of where our body is in space in actually slightly off for most people on the spectrum. So you thought your hand was going towards the peas but went for the string beans. Just a thought.
 
WeirdoGuy said:
I'm not sure if this is due to not seeing, or due to the fact that we have issues with our proprioception. Our perception of where our body is in space in actually slightly off for most people on the spectrum. So you thought your hand was going towards the peas but went for the string beans. Just a thought.
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I think this is a very interesting thought.
 
Sometimes. It's more about how I execute tasks than objects in my environment. It's weird, I have a photogenic memory of weirdly specific details at an airport I passed through when I was like 5 - not to mention all the traumatic BS I went through during my adolescence. But sometimes I'll go downstairs to get something, get sidetracked by a couple other things, then head back to my room and remember what I came down there for halfway back up the stairs. My short-term memory is a little bit less on-point than it used to be. However, I'm pretty confident I won't need to be dumped in a dementia ward for a loooooooooong while.

Although I will say I lose my bowl way too often, and often am just so damn blazed that I leave it somewhere obvious and am desperately feeling around for it for like a half-hour. And when I do find it, next to my computer or on the bathroom sink counter or somewhere like that, it's infuriating but a huge relief all at the same time.
 
Back to this, there were so many times my parents thought me either lying or lazy because of not seeing something that was literally right there.
 
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