Detailed perception and perceptual load
btbnnyr
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Is your perception very detailed, and do you see many many many details in a setting at the same time?
When I look at the world, I see lots of lots of details all at once. I don't zoom in to see the details a few at a time, because I see all the details right away, no zooming required.
I saw an abstract about autistic people having a greater perceptual load than NTs. According to the study, we can see moar things at the same time.
Some NTs told me that they see the big picture of the setting first, then zoom in to see the details if they need or want to. This kind of perception is alien to me, because the details are already there as soon as I look.
I have no idea what I see first. That is like showing me a picture of a bookshelf with books and toys on it and asking me what I see first.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
When I look at the world, I see lots of lots of details all at once. I don't zoom in to see the details a few at a time, because I see all the details right away, no zooming required.
Yes times a million.
It makes life hard.
Not only do I see physical things instantly, all of it, detailed, but wherever I go, whatever I see or do (even walking along the road I notice a million things like how the bins could be better arranged, the traffic lights, etc) see problems, solutions, questions, related thoughts, what others would think of those related thoughts, questions that would arise from that, further secondary solutions blah blah blah. All of it in an INSTANT almost. I'm thinking 50 different peoples-worth of thoughts all at the same time, in one single brain lol.
Too much.
But yes - I see all the details straight away. It enables quicker thinking though, I find. For example - I'm spectacularly good at putting together Ikea furniture, or just generally all kinds of problem solving or thinking that normally takes people what seems to me like a loooonnngg time to do...because I see everything quickly/instantly
I don't think I really understand the question. I see what is in front of me. I guess I can focus on one object if I'm trying to memorize the details about it, but I don't know about zooming. It seems like zooming is what you would use a spyglass for.
I have peripheral vision where I can't make out exactly what is around me unless I turn my head or my eyes, and I have a blind spot (right now the blind spot on my right is covering up part of the couch I'm sitting on and part of a mechanical pencil. The pencil keeps disappearing out of my vision and now I'm playing with my vision).
This concept is confusing me the more I think about it. More things at the same time? What does that mean in terms of people who DON'T see more things at one time? Do they just see fog or black or blind spots? How do their brains automatically know what is important to look at first?
I'm trying to make more sense of this by comparing it to other things that might help me understand. I'm relating it to reading, now. I can skim text pretty quickly when needed because I look over the whole paragraph and my brain scans over the stuff chunk by chunk. Sometimes my brain misses something but usually I have a "feel" for what was said. Then if I'm reading something important I'll re-scan more closely to make sure that nothing was missed.
Sometimes I'll even skip a few sentences or a paragraph as I'm scanning, and then I may or may not come back to them later once I've read through the main points.
btbnnyr
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I had assumed the eberryone saw the world in detail until I was told that this was not so. Most people have told me that they see the big features of a scene in general, like here is a tree, and here is a house, and there are some cars. Then, they look further, or zoom in, if they want to see the veins on the leaves or the dark spot on one of the tiles on the roof of the house. Otherwise, they miss the small features.
In contrast, I see these details right away, and I see them all at once. I cannot avoid seeing them. They are all just there, the parts making the wholes.
In a study, people were shown a circle of letters and told to find one letter, and at the same time, a shape was shown outside the circle. It turned out that autistic and typical people were able to see the distractor shape when there were less than four letters in the circle, but only autistic people were able to see the distractor shape when the number of letters was between 4 and 6. I don't think that there were any conditions with moar than 6 letters, but I bet that many autistic people would continue to see the shape if you increased the number of letters to 8 or 10 or moar. Performance on finding the target letter was not affected by continuing to see the shape, which was filtered out by NTs at high perceptual load of moar letters. They just don't see it all, like it doesn't eggsist. The researchers said that autistic people could handle a higher perceptual load, and I thought that was pretty consistent with how I see the world in detail.
Dr. Spencer Reid took one glance at a stabbed victim and immediately told his FBI partners that the woman was stabbed 71 times. WTF? What is the psychological term for his level of unusually accurate perception?
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btbnnyr
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I don't know what the term is, but I love Dr. Spencer Reid. Which episode was this?
And then my brain gets tired and I stop thinking. No thoughts.
Frustrates me I cant communicate well enough to do justice to my thinking, frustrates me being able to see something and failing to communicate it after repeated attempts.
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No one will tell me who and what I am and can be.
And then my brain gets tired and I stop thinking. No thoughts.
Frustrates me I cant communicate well enough to do justice to my thinking, frustrates me being able to see something and failing to communicate it after repeated attempts.
Exactly that. Frustration is a big part of my life.

I notice details. When I look at my bookshelves, I notice the books and ornaments in it, not just the entire bookshelf, if that makes any sense.
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"Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat." - Mark Twain
I remember a thread on here in which a visual test was posted. The test consisted of smaller letters comprising larger letters;
i.e.
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLLLLLLLLL
LLLLLLLLLLL
The test asked which the tester noticed first--the large letters or the smaller letters.
Most of the Aspies and autistics claimed that they saw the smaller letters first; some of them did not even notice that they comprised larger letters until they read the thread.
According to the study attached to the thread, most neurotypicals saw the larger letters first.
When I looked at the thread, I remember thinking immediately, "Oh! Look! A bunch of letters comprised by smaller letters!" It seems that I had noticed both the large letters and the small letters at the same time.
In terms of general perception, I've been known to both notice smaller details and "zoom out" and notice a larger scene and "zoom in."
That being said, I tend to speed-read, which leads me to believe that my mind is more inclined to look at the "big picture." However, I do notice each individual letter, and I do tend to notice more details than others that I know.
i.e.
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLLLLLLLLL
LLLLLLLLLLL
The test asked which the tester noticed first--the large letters or the smaller letters.
Most of the Aspies and autistics claimed that they saw the smaller letters first; some of them did not even notice that they comprised larger letters until they read the thread.
According to the study attached to the thread, most neurotypicals saw the larger letters first.
When I looked at the thread, I remember thinking immediately, "Oh! Look! A bunch of letters comprised by smaller letters!" It seems that I had noticed both the large letters and the small letters at the same time.

In terms of general perception, I've been known to both notice smaller details and "zoom out" and notice a larger scene and "zoom in."
That being said, I tend to speed-read, which leads me to believe that my mind is more inclined to look at the "big picture." However, I do notice each individual letter, and I do tend to notice more details than others that I know.
I saw the small letters first and immediately the big one. I not sure if I have AS though.
i.e.
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLLLLLLLLL
LLLLLLLLLLL
The test asked which the tester noticed first--the large letters or the smaller letters.
Most of the Aspies and autistics claimed that they saw the smaller letters first; some of them did not even notice that they comprised larger letters until they read the thread.
According to the study attached to the thread, most neurotypicals saw the larger letters first.
When I looked at the thread, I remember thinking immediately, "Oh! Look! A bunch of letters comprised by smaller letters!" It seems that I had noticed both the large letters and the small letters at the same time.

In terms of general perception, I've been known to both notice smaller details and "zoom out" and notice a larger scene and "zoom in."
That being said, I tend to speed-read, which leads me to believe that my mind is more inclined to look at the "big picture." However, I do notice each individual letter, and I do tend to notice more details than others that I know.
I saw the small letters first and immediately the big one. I not sure if I have AS though.
Haha, I saw a bunch of L's in rows of four and then for some reason two rows of 10 or so at the bottom (counted... 11).
I didn't understand what was meant by "big letters" until I read through the rest of the post and looked back and forth between the L's and the post a few times. I just kept wondering, "What are all of these letters supposed to mean? Are there some small letters somehow mixed in with the capital L's? All I see are capital L's...".

It makes sense to me. When I took an art class we had to do "gesture drawings" where the teacher would stand in front of the class in some silly pose and we had 20 seconds to sketch him. We were supposed to sketch his whole body but all I could ever do was his left eye (in great detail). Nobody else in the class had a problem with it.
i.e.
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLL
LLLLLLLLLLL
LLLLLLLLLLL
The test asked which the tester noticed first--the large letters or the smaller letters.
Most of the Aspies and autistics claimed that they saw the smaller letters first; some of them did not even notice that they comprised larger letters until they read the thread.
According to the study attached to the thread, most neurotypicals saw the larger letters first.
When I looked at the thread, I remember thinking immediately, "Oh! Look! A bunch of letters comprised by smaller letters!" It seems that I had noticed both the large letters and the small letters at the same time.

In terms of general perception, I've been known to both notice smaller details and "zoom out" and notice a larger scene and "zoom in."
That being said, I tend to speed-read, which leads me to believe that my mind is more inclined to look at the "big picture." However, I do notice each individual letter, and I do tend to notice more details than others that I know.
I remember that and I saw a bunch of small letters and I was wondering where are the big letters and then it took me a few visits to the thread that the big letter was a bunch of little letters which I thought were big ones that made a whole big letter.
Now I can see the huge letter and all the little Ls. I did the same thing at one of my autism groups while looking in a iSpy book and I didn't realize these objects made a three person. I was too busy looking for objects I didn't even notice. I just figured I was too busy paying attention to the small details I didn't look at the whole picture.
_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.