Anybody else get this memory problem?

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I have horrible short term memory.At work, I can't remember customers' faces, so when I go and get them something, I can't find them and am wondering around until they call out to me.

I forget where I put everything, especially my coffee and my basket or cart of putaways at work when I go to do a price check.

I forget what I was doing when I get called to do something else.

I forget names and facesof people I just met easily.


I can however soak up information from lectures in my paralegal classes like a sponge and practically repeat the whole lecture.

same thing for me

I'm sorry about that, I was working in a hurry......though as far as I can see, everybody would fit into one of the three categories (AS, NT or neither). But it's a shame that (for example) autistic people would have to be in the same category as all other non-AS and non-NT people, it would have been better to have another category for autistic people who don't have AS. Unfortunately, now that polling has started, I don't think the parameters can be altered (even if it were technically possible, those who had already voted would have the "goalposts" moved after voting, which might cause a problem).

Anyway, sorry to have lumped together NLDers with autism and with whatever other conditions there might be which aren't NT or AS. I see only 2 people have so far voted in the "neither" category, so luckily the main results aren't much affected. Not that I'm suggesting the "neither" people are insignificant as people. If this had been a vote leading to any kind of political preference being realised (rather than a survey of scientific interest), I'd have taken a lot more care. And it's a good lesson on how easy it is for anybody to accidentally exclude minority groups without ever meaning to be elitist. Reductionism is a double-edged sword.

Yes, exactly! This is why I am fairly bad at doing weekly menu planning. When my wife asks me, "What do you want to eat this week?" it's a nice gesture but I generally don't have any clue. I usually fall back to the basic 5 or so recipes I've done so much I've committed to long term memory. Then, when we come up with the plan, I will often have no idea what we planned for a specific evening's dinner until she reminds me. She used to think that this means that I don't care, but she has since learned that it's just the way my mind works (or doesn't as the case may be).

This why I still don't have a degree in computer technology. I've taken classes, and read books, but unless I actually do something my memory is rubbish.

My memory stores information by associations, and things must be retrieved in the same manner. I have learned that when I hear something that interests me, I know it is all up there, even though if someone asked me right after the lecture was finished, what the dude had to say in the lecture, I probably would not be able to answer. However, later if someone was talking about some attribute of the subject the lecture was about, everything that the lecturer had said on that subject, plus everything I had ever read in books on the subject, etc. etc. would come flooding to mind. Everything is up there, it just needs to be retrieved by association.

If I am learning something, and I already know something else that is similar to this new information then it just sticks. No need to memorize it or practice it, I've got it. However if it is something totally new to me, I need to be given an overview first so I have something to hang additional details on as my knowledge of the subject builds.

Recall is an ongoing frustration for me, particularly with names and nouns. When I need the word for something I am visualizing most of the time my recall gives me gives me a word, but its a good thing that I am blessed with good recognition, because much of the time my recall gives me the wrong word. It is most annoying when I am asking someone for something I need, and the name of the something won't come to mind. I have to sit there and give these descriptions and hope the person can guess what I am talking about.

This is exactly how I learn tunes. Tunes are comprised of little building block phrases which are stitched together by connector notes. When I am first learning a tune, I identify the building blocks, catalog them, then I learn the connector notes. (One of the reasons it's difficult to jump between tune genres, by the way, is because the building block phrases are quite different between genres.) When I assemble it all together, I have learned the tune. However, when I go off and do something else, I can't necessarily recall how the tune goes unless someone reminds me how it starts by whistling the first few notes. Once I recall the tune, though, I remember it completely. Once I play that tune, one of the building blocks which is shared between that tune and another tune may jog my memory of that tune, and then I will play the other tune.

Tunes are the ultimate form of associative learning and memory. There are literally thousands upon thousands of tunes out there, yet there is no tune hierarchy or navigation save for people's assocations with them. And everyone's associations are a bit different, so when we get together to play tunes with each other, not only are we sharing tunes but we are also sharing thought processes via mental associations.

This probably makes almost no sense to anyone but me (and the other tuneheads out there on WP).

If this is the way I learn tunes, then it all happens subconsciously. I am like Tory_canuck's memory of lectures, except mine is that way on memory of tunes. I hear it two or three times and I have it, and I usually recall it in the same pitch that I heard it, though it's very easy for me to translate it to another key in my imagination, and harmonize it there too. I have very good recall of sounds, but not so good recall of words. I often forget what someone said only seconds after hearing it, but I can often remind myself by recalling the sound of the person speaking.

However tunes can be retrieved via associations too. I shared this somewhere else on this forum. Random non musical sounds like squeaky doors or the random rhythm of several people hammering at the same time, can cause tunes that happen to have that series of tones, or that same rhythm to pop into my head and begin to play on my mind's CD from the beginning. Some of the associations my brain makes, even amaze me.

I don't think I have this problem. Am Aspie.

I think your problem may be depression-related or may be a result of vitamin B deifiancy. Having said this, I experience similar memory access problems too. However I doubt that they result from AS because I don't remember having such problems in my childhood - or before my first depression arounda 13.

I experience a rather more unique memory problem that I think is related with AS. Since 3 years old (thats as olda as I can remember), during thinking or planning something, I lose count of my thoughts and have a blank mind for about 2-3 minutes till I remember what I was up to. It's not something as loss of consciousness or having an attack. The mind suddenly empties. Has any of you experienced such a thing?

This makes complete sense to me and I'm not a musician. Usually the more unique the melody the easier the recall.

Usually I remember all the verses of a song subconsciously. The only trouble I have with replying an entire song note for note in my head is that I forget the ordering and number of repetitions. I have to consciously make an effort to memorize that.

I seem to have two separate issues. One is simply recall. The other is the ability to easily summarize something on the spot. I think the latter is difficult due to the way my mind encapsulates information in a non-verbal format. I have to think to translate an abstract message into words.

I've always had trouble with name recall as well. It's gotten worse lately because depression has been messing with my mind.

I'm curious. Have you ever played a CD often enough that at the end of one song, you can hear in your mind's ear, the sound of the next song before it starts to play? That is how I experience recall of songs. I don't have to worry about the number of repetitions, I just hear the next section coming. I guess I memorize music rather quickly, though it doesn't seem all that fast to me.

I was reprocessing this conversation, while I was in the shower this morning, and while contemplating it I remembered something Temple Grandin wrote in Animals in Translation, where an experimenter was exposing NT subjects to some kind of magnetic stimulation to cause their cerebral frontal lobes to shut down, so they could experience sensory input at the raw data level. Cast in this light fiddlerpianist, your experience strikes me as experiencing sensory input closer to a raw data level, and mine is more like an NT experience where these things occur more in the background. Yet I wonder. How did I figure out how my memory functions then if it's always a background process for me? I wonder if some of us experience input closer to the raw data level in some areas, but function at a higher level in others.

Of course you woldn't remember if you have this problem, now would you.


Sounds like you're simply zoning out, most of us do for longer or shorter times.

I am curious if anyone here experiences what I call reprocessing, where your brain automatically recalls things experienced the previous day, or from recent days, and replaying the experience to recontemplate it. I suspect posts people have written, talking about laughing to themselves at jokes they heard on another day might be evidence of this. Many people that I know do not do this. I have wondered if this is something that is necessary for the kind of memory that I have.