Identifying what I see - from the shape to the object

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Do you folks have that kind of problem ? Let me explain a bit. When i look at an image, what i see first is only lines, patch of colors, contour.... It takes anywhere from a fraction of second to hours (yes hours!) to have all those informations forming the concept of the object i see. Sometimes i simply cannot identify the object until someone tells me.

This happens also if i suddenly change all the information i see at once, like if i switch channel on the tv. I sometime cannot comprehend what's on the screen. If i'm watching a movie where they switches views rapidly, it is just blur for me. When i look at some video games where the "camera" is moving a lot around the scene and there is a lot of things happening (attacks, enemy going in and out of the view etc...) i just simply cannot follow. I cannot identify what is what, it just looks as a bunch of lines, colors etc.

Does this have a name ? Does it have anything to do with AS ?

It may be agnosia. It's a disorder in which you can see things perfectly fine, but can not recognize them. I don't know much about it, but I suggest you look into it.

Additionally, there is an interesting story about a man who might have had it, called "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" by Oliver Sacks. I haven't read it, but I've heard very good things about it.

I do this too, at least once a week I think. Same for the video games.
I remember a black and white photograph. There is a swan on it. For years, I mistook it for a dog!
I don't know if this has something to do with AS.

IT usually takes me only a matter of moments...unless I don't have my glasses on! :-p

But what I <i>have</i> noticed is this: my mind does not question seemingly unlikely things that it seems to perceive. Example: last night, I was driving home at dusk. It looked _for_all_the_world_ as though a vehicle was approaching me...and it's headlights and taillights were on but the body of the car was invisible and I could see the road between the two sets of lights!! I thought, WOW, that's *weird*. How can that be?? But that is what my eyes saw and that is what my brain accepted as fact! (As it turned out, they were two different vehicles traveling closely together, what I thought was taillights was actually the headlights of the second vehicle. The way they were comign around the curve made it look like one, transparent vehicle with lights only visible).