Anyone else experience this type of "processing"?

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I seem to experience this frequently and was wondering who else could identify with this feeling. I don't quite know if it has to do with the way information is processed but that's the best way I can think to describe it.

Anyway, it's like certain sentences and scenarios get stuck in my head. On a loop. For example, it happens a lot when I'm watching TV (not always but it's when it comes up a lot). A character can say something, a simple straightforward sentence even, and my mind will lock on it. And it will just play over and over until I fix it. To do that, I need to literally break the sentence down in my head bit by bit so that it's "fully processed". This is difficult to explain and seems to only make sense to me but basically this is what it's like...

Someone says: "I walked to the park today and stopped to chat with a friend on the way." A straightforward statement. But if it gets "stuck" I have to do this to get it to stop. I break it down in my head by picturing the person walking first. I have to create the mental image of them walking along a street, taking many details into account. Then I need to picture them stopping along their route to chat with a friend. And questions can pop into my mind. What did it look like when they were walking? What made them stop and chat? What did they chat about? And it goes on and on and becomes quite frustrating. There have been a few times I've even had to repeat the lines out loud to get the cycle to stop. The strange thing is that I can be following a conversation or story line perfectly and then all of a sudden it happens. I have no idea what causes this or if this post made any sense but I'd be interested to hear if anyone actually knows what I'm talking about.

What I do to get it to stop, is repeat it aloud to myself, over and over again, until I can reproduce the original speaker's voice perfectly. At that point, I can branch off and create a whole new dialogue in that character's voice and turn it into something that amuses me. I've been doing that since I learned to imitate cartoon characters as a child. It started with Bullwinkle and Dudley Do Right and Shaggy and Scooby-Doo and graduated to actors in movies and talk show hosts and politicians in the news.

Thanks for the response. Repeating it out loud is usually what works for me (in my regular voice, since I can't do impressions, haha). It's certainly annoying when it's happening though.

Something similar happens to me too but moreso after the fact not during the event so the event is not interrupted. I don't know what happens to stop it for me. It can be stuck and loop for awhile but I just let it play out until it's done.

Only with music.

Yes, music here too, - and some times a sentence, - or a word.

its just a pesky part of autism knickknack.
its mental echolalia, mine is always flowing in head but unlike aspies/HFAs am also unable to speak unless its in echolalia.

Yes I get this one alot, I've come to call them "Feedback loops".

I can actually get excessively frustrated if someone says something to me completely ill conceived logic to a rational and well thought out argument and/or point.

Rather annoying but through this births my tenacity can often be an advantage.

Happens to me all the time. I was watching something recently where some guy was giving a speech and said "I submit that...". But what stuck in my head was him saying "I submit" probably because it has two different meanings. "I submit" like ten thousand times.

Really interesting reading these responses. I actually never considered it could be "mental echolalia". I guess it is some kind of delayed processing of certain words and phrases because another way of describing it is that whatever gets stuck on a loop seems "blurry" in my mind until I can work through it. Super annoying though!

OP, you described it quite well.

This has happened to me all my life. Someone will say something to me, the words will "enter my ears" so to speak, but then they stay sitting stagnant in my mind for a little bit. This is why I never initially identified with Asperger's. I thought the processing problems were more like the recent thing in the news describing it as "audio out of sync on tv", and that what I experience is something everyone experiences.

Lately though, I'm sensing that this is my processing issue. I hear the words but the meaning doesn't come to me as quickly as for everyone else. Often someone will say something or ask me something, and I just stare and them and literally have to tell them "I don't know what you just said, hold on."

Is this similar to what the OP or others experience?

Yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about. The words are all simple enough to understand but for some reason they just sit in my head for a while and feel either like a jumbled mess or like I simply cannot visualize what's being conveyed with the words. I never used to think much of it but it's been happening increasingly often and makes me so frustrated because I can't move on and do or even think anything else until it passes.

Do you have any idea if this happens to NTs on a regular basis? Curious how important it would be to mention at evaluation. I mean, I guess I've always just been used to it so never gave it much thought. Like most of my life-long habits and experiences, I assumed everyone experienced this.

Honestly, I haven't brought this up with other people but I doubt it's a typical experience for NTs. I think it's worth mentioning. It seems to be a fairly common ASD thing but I'm also wondering if it could be caused by OCD maybe? I know the two go hand in hand sometimes though and I definitely have OCD behavior...

Lately it's been "what does the fox say? ding ding ding ding ding ding ding."

Yes. I've even done this in Japanese and acquired understanding through it.