An interesting Observation...

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Hi all,
I was on my driving lesson the other day and he said that the reason i have trouble with my awareness in the car is because i focus on only one thing at any one time for long periods.
I continued talking to him about this and in the end came to the conclusion that most NT's are constantly shifting their focus, an example:
An NT in a park, sat on the bench, looks at the bird, a second later looks at the person just walking by him (only a quick glance), then back to the bird, he hears people talking, has a quick glance at the peole walking, the bird tweets again so he has a glance at the bird...

Me sat in the Park on a bench, i see the bird, i focus on the bird and watch its every move, focusing on it oblivious to the person that just walked by, the bird just went to it's nest, i hear some people talking in the distance, the bird is feeding it's young, the sounds of people talking in the distance are getting closer they must be coming this way, the bird flies off...

From these examples you can see what i mean, the Neurotypical person is aware of everything around him, constant glances, does not devote his mind to any one thing in particular, instead multi-tasks between the bird, the people and son on.
Me on the other hand would devote 99% of my thinking to the bird, watching it and learning from it's behaviour.
Do other aspies find the above example of me in the park to fit their way of thinking as well?

Definitely! I can scarcely do anything without being focused on the one thing, often to the exclusion of everything else. It was a problem for me in driving lessons too, come to think of it.

Awareness... I was constantly told by my boss in my last job that he felt awareness was a problem for me. Now I realise why. I was always focused on one thing, or always focused on solving one problem. It often made me negligent of every other task, often with embarrassing results. Unintentionally negligent, but negligent.

hehehe! when i was learning to drive my instructor kept picking me up on one point. In the UK, when you turn left you look to the right before pulling out. What i would do was look to the right, then pull out but i would still be looking to the right and not towards where i was going! he compared me to a rabbit caught in headlights!

I cannot drive, so I will be taking a disability seniors bus. Many people with A.S online I have been observant to also have trouble driving.

I've tried to drive. I find myself too easily internally distracted by thought and ideas. There are to many things going on to pay attention to. Yet I also have been in a car accident when I was younger, while I do not fear it, I'd not want to crash into someone else and do that to them.

I was thinking about taking pro classes with instruction for a challenge of it.

Learning to drive was a major task for me, over several years, in large part just due to that effect. Another problem was imagining too much, and not trusting other cars to behave reasonably... (To what extent that belief is reasonable may be up for debate).

It took a long time to hammer enough reflexes into me that I need not pay distracting conscious attention to the controls. Learning to pay attention to different angles and ranges outside the car was a lesser problem.

Worrying about the if's and how to respond to the if situations. Especially if other drivers present unpredictable behaviors, id rather to learn to drive first where there are no other cars.

That is an interesting observation!

This observation does not only apply to driving though, although driving does require a fair bit of multi-tasking.

This observation could also explain why aspies do not like groups of people, emotions put aside, interaction with one person allows us to focus on just that person, interaction with multiple people require us to continualy shift our focus from person to person.

Also, i have never met an aspie that talks while working, he/she either talks or works, not both. NT's i noticed regularely talk while attending to their work.

Single tasking it apears is an aspie trait, i don't think i have ever heared of a single tasking NT. Has anyone here ever met an NT that can only focus on one thing at any one time and does not easily change his/her thought processes?