Social memory

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What I mean by that is the memory required for social interaction.

I think a big stumbling block for me in social interaction with NTs is an inability to quickly recall the details of prior interactions I had with a person, which includes that person's behavior and actions, their demeanor towards me, what they said and didn't say, the thoughts I had about prior interactions with them, my opinion of them from prior interactions etc etc

NTs seem to have very good memory about prior interactions while I struggle with it. This deficit in memory seems to be both short term and long term, that is, I struggle to recall details of interactions I had two days ago as well as two years ago.

Have others here experienced this? If so, have you figured out what causes this and how have you been able to workaround this?

Its difficult for me to remember faces, i mostly remeber clothes and styles of dress.

Mostly you seem to lack the abilitie to encode social interactions, but what do you mean with shrt term and long term memory? Mostly short time memory doesn't lasts for more than a few minutes, so any interaction in your short term memory sould be allready gone at the next interaction.

I have it too and I think it is related to my prosopagnosia (difficulty remembering faces). Everyone looks the same for me so I lack the most dependable system of cataloging information about people. Face is an individual thing, hairstyles and clothes are not - any information I learn tends to go randomly to any person of similar characteristics in my memory. While I can remember what happened I can't connect it to any specific person. I am often able to say word by word what someone said but I can't remember who said it. When I see a person, especially if we are not close to each other I don't remember what I was doing with him/her because there is a lot of people with similar characteristics. It could be anyone - the guy I met in a bus, the guy that was in class with me but was not my close friend, the guy that is son of my mother friend, the guy that works in shop I go to sometimes... There is so many possibilities and each of them is so unsure I don't focus on any and wait till the guy gives me a clue, everytime I met someone (unless he is very close to me) he starts with a clean account. I don't even ask about people personal lifes anymore because I know will not remember it as an information connected to this specific person and it will just be one more disorienting trash in my memory.

Funny thing: two days ago I met the autism specialist that diagnosed Asperger to me a month before. "Hmm, she looks familiar. Perhaps she is my cousins girlfriend? But wait! Did I even met my cousins girlfriend or only someone told me about meeting her?" - I thought to myself before my mom told me who it was. Honestly... I should at least remember her. The diagnosis was a turning point in my life. I remember the whole conversation. But I don't remember her as a person and I don't even know how she looks...

This is one of the most irritating things about ASD, I find, as well as something that doesn't get addressed very often. Before my diagnosis issues with memory was one of the things that affected my life the most, and once I got officially diagnosed I thought I'd get help with...handling it? Dealing with it? I don't know, but point is-- I didn't. Help with memory stuff is always in regards to short term, which isn't where my issues lie!

and @kiriae the exact same thing happened with the specialist that diagnosed me, I saw her twice, and the second time she came into the waiting room and I had no recollection of her face whatsoever. Fortunately she was understanding about the fact, haha.

Something that happens to me pretty often is I forget who was present in certain interactions - I can remember the topics and the place where it was, and have a very detailed memory for that, but remembering what people said or who was there - not so much. It happens really often where I'll start telling a story about an important trip or event I went to, and the person I'm talking to will be like, "Yeah...I was there with you..."

By "short term memory", I mean the memory that lasts for say a few days - the kind of memory that would be used to recall events and interactions that happened a few days ago. I realize I may not be using the correct technical term for such a memory but this is the type of memory I have most problems with.

Does anyone know the technical term for memory that lasts for a few days?

It is technical longterm memory.

I remember people's names but I'm not very good at remembering faces. expressions and what people were wearing but I can remember tone of voice and what people say well enough. Not being able to remember what a person looks like can make recurring social interactions difficult, until I've seen that person enough to remember their characteristics.

I've got an excellent memory of various concrete things like facts and figures.
Completely and utterly useless when it comes to remembering faces though, like the poster earlier in this thread. I've never been able to improve on this as much as I try.

Yeah, seems like technically long term memory is classed as running anywhere from 30 mins to a lifetime. Frankly, I don't find that classification terribly useful. I have good long term memory for facts and figures but it is the social aspect of the memory running anywhere from a few days to a few months where I have a deficit.


It's pretty frustrating not being able to identify this kind of memory.