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Zur-Darkstar
Deinonychus
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08 Dec 2010, 11:41 am

I started doing this when I was a child. My babysitter's family had a thick country accent, which I imitated when I was around them. I also started imitating TV voices.



KissOfMarmaladeSky
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08 Dec 2010, 1:07 pm

I can change both my accent and my voice if I'm staying in a place for a long time, or when I'm bored and want to do something fun.



steelysunshine
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12 Jul 2015, 11:01 pm

Sorry to drag up an old thread, but I didn't want to make a new one when there is this one. I found it in google. Any way, it's starting to be an eerie experience for me as I realize I have been describing a lot of common Asperger's traits to people over the years not knowing they are common traits. This one I would tell people in advance sometimes because if I talk to someone long enough sure enough (it can be minutes or hours)I will start to sound like them. If I go to the city I don't even have to talk to anyone just listening to people I will start talking in an urban accent. After I talk to my SO for a while like in the morning I might go out with a Mexican accent. I used to baby sit for a lady from Virginia and I used her accent a whole lot. Even weirder when I read Pygmalion, I started talking with a Cockney accent. When I read Huck Finn I started talking with that accent. I would do it with TV shows too, but not nearly as much as I would with live conversation or the written accents. If I talk too someone from greater Minnesota, I will be all like ya' fer shur ya betcha for a week.



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12 Jul 2015, 11:29 pm

I capture accents, phrases, body movements, sometimes if I see the person doing it, a close duplication of their handwriting at first glance.


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steelysunshine
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13 Jul 2015, 10:03 pm

BeggingTurtle wrote:
I capture accents, phrases, body movements, sometimes if I see the person doing it, a close duplication of their handwriting at first glance.


A thought was forming over the past couple of days and now I got it. I wonder if it isn't a way to try to appear like a neuro typical person. Not on purpose subconsciously.



tinyteddy
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13 Jul 2015, 10:41 pm

haha i definitely do this unconciously. i catch myself doing it. i think everyone does it actually. AS and NT



Noca
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14 Jul 2015, 7:21 pm

I often mimic the personality that I think the person who I am talking to wants to talk to.



tinyteddy
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14 Jul 2015, 7:54 pm

Noca wrote:
I often mimic the personality that I think the person who I am talking to wants to talk to.

man i do this so much. even just at the grocery store or something.



Mikurotoro92
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10 Aug 2023, 1:46 am

There was an episode of the cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants called "Mimic Madness" that was all about this!

I believe the reason SpongeBob wanted to mimic everyone is because he was trying to hide or mask his disability!



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10 Aug 2023, 3:10 am

i can mimic accents and voices pretty well. i have had people in the past suggest that i should become a voice actor.

it isnt something i do to make myself more comfortable around other people. its more related to my interest in language and story telling. i pick up accents without intending to from listening to people talk then try them out later by myself or around people i trust.

i do i behave in a way that i think the people around me would prefer or expect. i dont think that is the same thing though



ToughDiamond
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10 Aug 2023, 8:10 am

I've often mimicked accents and copied intonations, but never unconsciously. I think it was partly because I didn't like the sound of my own voice and because I thought that what I said would be better accepted if I said it like somebody else might say it. I think children learn language by imitation, so maybe it's not so odd, except in degree. By the time I was 18, I was talking with a Liverpool accent. That was because I thought The Beatles were very cool so I guess I was expecting people would think I was cool also.

My singing took on a similar pattern - in fact most English pop music singers use an American accent in order to sound authentically like the most popular records, and you can often tell which famous vocalists they're basing their style on. I once read a book about how to sing, which said that it's useful to mimic the voices of good singers and that you can often get a better result by doing so. Others say it's futile because at best all you get is a carbon copy of something that's already been done. But the saving grace is that it never entirely works, so there's still some of you in the result, and you can call that originality. The earliest Beatles recordings show that they were trying to sound like Elvis.

My father (very likely an Aspie) often used to mimick film stars briefly. I think he did it in the hope of making what he said more entertaining. But again, it's something that a lot of people do from time to time.



ToughDiamond
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10 Aug 2023, 8:18 am

I got my first girlfriend by using my Westcountry accent. I'd picked it up after a long stay in Cornwall, and then the youth club I was in put on a pantomime in which I played the part of a yokel. I found it was easy to recite the script with that accent quite convincingly, and I think it made a good impression. After the show somebody told me that a girl in the audience fancied me.



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10 Aug 2023, 7:17 pm

I took on the persona of a Spock-like character for my first at-sea deployment.  No smiles (deliberately), monotone voice, no jokes, pure business-like attitude, et cetera.  You know . . . normal Aspie-like behavior.

My fellow enlistees hated me for being squared-away, always passing inspections and exams, and for being where I was supposed to be, when I was supposed to be there, and doing what I was supposed to be doing.  (Obsession with good order and self-discipline.)

The XO (also somewhat nerdy) referred to me as "Petty Officer Spock" right from the start, and no one corrected him (not even the Captain).

When I left the ship for the last time, I laughed maniacally all the way to the pier.

:twisted:



Spectat
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10 Aug 2023, 10:15 pm

Like many of you I automatically switch accents when speaking with people that have different accents. I have to be careful in this political climate though. When telling stories to others that involve folks that have distinct accents I will go into accent mode when I say the things they said, which might trigger people. I don't do it on purpose though, I'm just replicating what I heard for the people listening to my story. I've had people point that out to me before which is a little embarrassing.

I think it's our mirroring neurons going into effect and we just automatically copy what we hear. It's possibly an extension of our masking tendency as well.


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10 Aug 2023, 10:16 pm

Fnord wrote:
I took on the persona of a Spock-like character for my first at-sea deployment.  No smiles (deliberately), monotone voice, no jokes, pure business-like attitude, et cetera.  You know . . . normal Aspie-like behavior.

My fellow enlistees hated me for being squared-away, always passing inspections and exams, and for being where I was supposed to be, when I was supposed to be there, and doing what I was supposed to be doing.  (Obsession with good order and self-discipline.)

The XO (also somewhat nerdy) referred to me as "Petty Officer Spock" right from the start, and no one corrected him (not even the Captain).

When I left the ship for the last time, I laughed maniacally all the way to the pier.

:twisted:


Being a huge Star Trek fan, I adopted a no emotion philosophy for about a year before it became unsustainable.


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