Pattern recognition/increased perception

Thank you pdaddio83, I guess it’s perhaps because a lot of Autistic people analyse everything on the daily, it’s the structure of the concepts that we can then connect to other structures with very similar concepts creating a link upon a link upon a link, sorry I’m just thinking out loud

I think I experience this a bit, increased pattern recognition. For example, I have an excellent memory for people's faces, I'll remember what someone looks like almost instantly, However, ask me to repeat their names and I haven't got a clue. I think I just respond to visuals better than audio. Also, when someone is trying to teach me a board game and they explain the rules verbally to me, I feel lost and confused. So I just watch the game play out instead and suddenly everything clicks into place.

Other things I can think of are wordsearches, the words don't seem that difficult for me to just "see". And when I help my son with his maths homework, I just look at another example and substitute the bits for his question. I can't really explain how I do this, it just happens.

That’s actually really interesting, how your mind has this sequence decoder that breaks down the information into understandable concepts/commands and ideas at work. Everything could potentially have a pattern to it, sometimes I think on a much larger scale really beyond my abilities and start to believe you may be able to accurately predict world events with enough input from outside stimuli. 

Pattern recognition helps me predict people’s reactions, I’m usually right. It also helps identify the cause of some mistake at work, better understand how it happens and find ways to prevent it. Increased perception is also useful at work - I’m good at finding mistakes or damages to the goods, frauds in system etc. it also helped me find an old delivery note which was being fervently searched by bosses assistant and others for at least few hours. When they told me to try to find it, I found it after few minutes. It’s because I observe how order numbers change and I observe how the procedures change over time. This helped me understand quickly what happened and why it got lost. 

Designed to be self contained intelligence, thinking for ourselves and not by the choices of others. 

Wow I bet you are a real computer whizz, I enjoy the solo aspects of working on computers, not so much the fixing and maintenance part but the daily usage as a tool. I would give an example of mine for instance if someone had moved house (anyone) 4/5 times over the last few years without any real cause I’d say they were problematic to be around and should probably be avoided (to me personally) because the lack of structure indicates emotional/personal instability which could cause me or others harm and I like to be especially picky of those in my world. I know these sound like real harsh words but i say them with no emotion just in a factual way without trying to upset any readers on purpose and in the hope of finding similar like minded people who may be on the gifted spectrum.

I feel the same way with driving. Everyone, on the wee roads, fly. Even this afternoon, I was nearly plowed into by a Chap I know who has a mobile Pizza stall; from his Renault Van.

Desmond1979 said:

It was as if we were intentionally designed to be Geeky

Divine design or evolution - either way I embraced it and used to be in my element almost feeling like I was connected to the computer and seeing what is going on, like the operators in the Matrix watching the source code.

It played on my hyperfocus and lack of filters so it really felt like the information was washing over me. Something that only also happens when I'm driving a motorbike and soaking up all the risks, information around me and the feeling of feedback from the bike.

That's the Hobson's choice; we face. It was as if we were intentionally designed to be Geeky.

I worked for 4 decades in IT support in all levels and the use of pattern recognition is an incredibly useful part of the diagnostic process.

Looking for what looks out of the normal in the logs of a computer gives a great deal of information to track down the things causing the issue that is being reported when someone is having computer problems.

Seeing screenfuls of logs scrolling away and being able to spot certain codes in sequence so they can be zoomed into makes so much difference.

Even running through various diagnostics and looking for anything slightly out of the ordinary also helps get to the root cause of the problem fast but it requites a lot of focus on little things going on on-screen and listening for little things like to cooling fan going faster, the cursor getting erratic of unusually slow response from the application.

I guess AI will be able to do all this in due process. I was involved in training AI to take over my role when I retired so I have seen it in operation and it is scary.

IT support is an area a lot of autists gravitate towards (possibly ironically as it is often unsuited to them) as it is both an entry level way into an IT career and a place where other IT teams dump staff into when they don't get on with them - or where some favourite of another senior manager asks for their offspring to be given a job in IT.

The requirements of being often on the phone with people, having to interact with people routinely, dealing with upset or angry users and multitasking are all core requirements which are regularly things autists struggle with though.

The attrition rate is therefore quite high as autists cannot hack the requirements and it unfortunately makes them therefore unreliable to hire.

That’s interesting, it’s inhibited by schooling you say? School is repetitive too, I didn’t go to secondary school other than maybe a few months in year 7. It’s a really fascinating topic autism!

Pattern Recognition is, apparently, one of the key intellectual skills inhibited by Schooling; which is all about repetition.