Not Just Repeating Speech (Echolalia)

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I tend to mimic the accent of someone I'm talking to. I have to talk people from various parts of the UK and there are many and varied accents here. I was talking to a Scottish guy (I'm not Scottish) and he picked up on it and asked me about it. I didn't even know I'd done it but he was ok about it - it was quite accurate apparently. Just the other day I caught myself doing the same with an Italian... can't help it.

I have this, it's apparently an INTP personality trait.

yes, mimicry is my 'savant' skill. it can get embarrassing though, some people think you're trying to be offensive but i find it hard to maintain my own voice around strong accents and i end up talking like them.

i wonder if this is the autistic form of 'mirroring', it's a very central social skill to NTs, people like people who are 'like' them.

That's true, there is a risk that people will think I am taking the piss. I don't know how I would explain what's going on.

This is what I do. A lot of speech and other sounds will echo in a fading repetition in my head. Sort of like my head was a vast, cavernous echo-chamber. I almost visualize my sense of hearing being processed through a delay pedal. It's almost cool, in a messed up sort of way....

I mimic sounds more than speech. Animals, cars, sirens, instruments, sound effects, etc.

I also tend to absorb and recreate whole personae, like when I watch a movie and then walk talk and act just like the main character.

Yes. People have said to me that I mimick other peoples mannerisms.

If I spend enough time with a person and I like them I will turn into them, apart from physical features.
It happens when I watch movie too, like Harry Potter. And once I watched so much Malcolm in the Middle that I started to sound as annoying as Malcolm.
I wouldn't mind having some House echolalia. People would keep asking me what the hell I was talking about.

That would be amusing to see

often I find that I use a stock variety of different "accents", tell the same stories/anecdotes and have the compulsion to constantly rewrite certain phrases over and over in my notebook. As well as finding myself mimicking physical gestures, I too find that when with different people I tend to act in different ways, ie variations in assertiveness, mannerism and general attitude. I have a particular... interest? in palindromes; able was I, ere i saw elba is written on pretty much every piece of paper I own.

I can relate to "social echolalia" as it is described in the blogspot "spectrumtheory".

Quote: "They resonate with, or at the very least try to resonate with, whatever that person expresses to them or presents them with. They take in the other?s thoughts, feelings, language, intonation and information, all of which they are much more acutely perceptive of than normal." ..

"If they are engaging with a neurotypical from the low end of the empathy spectrum who is just putting on a pantomime display of their cultural identity and going through the motions of social protocols, then it will be that cultural identity that the autistic person takes in and resonates with. This engagement gets described as social echolalia, which is considered to be something autistic people do in place of being able to interact naturally, ironically."

Does this make sense to any others?

(This is my first post here, fingers crossed that I didn't break some totally basic norms for online forums..