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.

 

[FayetheAspie]

The article below discusses detail orientation, pattern recognition, and several other traits commonly seen in ASD. As always remember that not every individual has every trait and trait combinations can very.
Top 10 Autism Traits Which Get Overlooked - AngelSense.
I don't have any experience with this company's products. It is just where I found the list.

 

[Angular Chap]

I think have pretty good pattern recognition.

A technical example: I learned to recognise what is happening with devices on a network just by looking at the way the lights blink on a modem, router, switch, access point etc. I wish more people in IT could analyse a network at a glance just by looking at the blinking light patterns, that’s what they’re for!

I also learned to recognise what’s happening on a mechanical hard drive by listening to the motor and actuator.

As for social patterns, I guess I’m quite good at those as well.

Working with fraud victims, I began to notice when people had been influenced by someone else by their reaction to certain things.

I noticed a pattern that I rarely seem to upset peers but always seem to upset authority figures.

I noticed people would often treat me as an inconvenience.

And the big one that started me down the path to discovering I was autistic: whenever I had to go somewhere, everyone else just seemed to know where to go, what to do, what to say and who to say it to, but I was always totally lost and confused.

 

[blitzkrieg]

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 this too and I find it impacts my ability to recognize visual things in certain situations.

 

[blitzkrieg]

I told a psychiatrist about it many years ago, thinking it was something I was imagining, but then I found out what it was by researching online.

 

[Sherlock77]

I definitely have pattern recognition, moreso as a photographer... I have a tendency to see a bigger picture, to spot things that all add up together... But then do other photographers/artists also have that same ability? Or is that also my Autism as well?

My sense of observation is heightened whenever I'm walking around, with or without my camera

Here's one example I drug up from my archives, a landscape from southern Alberta, this is a truck lots of people photograph, but I haven't seen it photographed this way before, I'm referring to those hills in the background, called the Sweetgrass Hills... Perhaps it's a subtle element but as I eyeballed the scene part of what I wanted to photograph...

 

[Richelle-H]

@Shelock77, I think your eye for composition is a skill that cannot be taught effectively. You either have it or you do not and you most certainly do in my opinion.

On the topic:

I have always noticed patterns, be they visual, aural, or linked to a specific program or personality. An example of this is that I could always identify Rich Little's innate vocal pattern underneath whatever celebrity he was impersonating. So, when he dubbed either Peter Sellers or David Niven at the end of their careers, I knew instantly it was him without any prior knowledge that he had been enlisted to complete the necessary post production dubbing.

I think my pattern recognition skills are what made me an effective debugger of computer programs as well as the hardware underneath. I just naturally zero in on things that others just seem to ignore or overlook.

Is this a part of my Asperger's? Perhaps, but I think it more likely that my ASD acts more as an mental amplifier rather than being the source of the skill. That is just my take on it, without any more evidence than observation of my own patterns.

 

[UFO]

Hmm... I consider myself as a good programmer. My methods might be unorthodox and outdated (I am 80s kid), but they work and are efficient at first try (thought automatic optimization and consideration about speed of the code was more useful back in 80s and 90s, while today readable code is more important). In my work I was assigned thrice to a "special task force" that was sent to a customer and was supposed to debug and develop a quick and dirty fix to a software problem in matter of hours rather than in days. Last time I was sent to debug software that I had never even seen (that was a moment when I realized that my employer might consider me as "invaluable")! In school during a physics class I did combine equations for waveform energies and electron motions for sports, and found out some kind of proof why electrons can rotate atom core only in certain orbits (or something like that, I don't remember anymore). That was out of curriculum, and happened when I was teenager, ie. not a university student or anything.

So I could say that I might have an ability to notice patterns. Thought as a kid I had hard time to figure out that division and fractional numbers are a same thing... Go figure...

The article below discusses detail orientation, pattern recognition, and several other traits commonly seen in ASD. As always remember that not every individual has every trait and trait combinations can very.
Top 10 Autism Traits Which Get Overlooked - AngelSense.

Hmm... Traits:
1. I don't have a good long-term memory.
2. I don't know about auditory and visual tasks, but I admit that having to read problem description slows me down.
3. Creative thinking: my first idea for brick and paper clip was a mouse trap where brick is held up with paper clip (unfeasible, but first thing that came to my mind).
4. Well, I am good at math and considered "talented" in math. Too bad that I actually dislike math.
5. Repetitive tasks: I like grinding. Both in games and in work. In my work last thing I need is having to stress myself with some hard and challenging task that I can fail... I rather reserve challenges to something I actually like.
6. I don't know, perhaps I do pay attention to small details enough much to make annoying out-of-place questions about everything.
7. I can lie and keep doing it just fine, I just need to make notes what lies I have been telling. But I don't like lying for any reason: white lies are for self-preservation rather than convenience (the classic "no, darling, you don't look fat in that dress...").
8. I don't know. I do have a (bad) habit of assuming that a known troll is now going to have a serious conversation when he/she starts a new thread in perfectly sensible manner and content. I do know that it ends up badly, but my first reaction is always to take him/her seriously until things turn sour.
9. I have always thought that being reliable and loyal is mostly cultural thing to me rather than something innate. It is just not good manners to not do something I have promised to do, or leave anyone in trouble.
10. Enhanced motion perception is an interesting one: I don't know if I normally pay attention to movement more than anyone else (or perhaps I do: I always prefer front seats in class rooms etc. because I don't like watch people moving around in front of me), but I can tune myself to a state, where I don't see things around me clearly, but I do see all movement (ants, swaying grass etc.).

 

[Sherlock77]

@Shelock77, I think your eye for composition is a skill that cannot be taught effectively. You either have it or you do not and you most certainly do in my opinion.

And to me that is pattern recognition, but then perhaps all artists who are good learn to develop that anyway

 

[Rachie]

Yes, and sometimes and you can just see too much in things and it can become distrubing to you and unpleasant. Although it can be a positive it can also a negative and especially with hypersenstives as well.