I was talking to someone who isn’t on the autism spectrum. I asked him what he thought of when he looked at different objects. His response surprised me, as when he looked at something, he thought of experiences he had with other people. I do not think that way; however, everyone is not the same. An example that came up was that when he looked at a child’s play park, he remembered a time at a play park with his friends and described the games they played. If he looked at something, it reminded him of social situations he enjoyed when he was young. He associated objects with emotions, memories and experiences he had that related to the object.
When I look at something, I see the different shapes that make up the object, as well as the textures and the colours. They don’t make me think of memories or experiences with other people. When I look at trees and plants, the first thing I focus on is scanning the shape around the edges created by the leaves, the patterns and the different shades of different colours. This does not mean that I cannot look at something and relate it to memories I have had in the past or what the object is as a whole, because I can. I usually pay close attention to the small things, but I also see the bigger picture, such as the connection of a tree to nature, a landscape, a forest, or a memory.
Final Thoughts
We are not all the same, and we have different ways of viewing the world. Many autistic people have a strong ability to notice details such as patterns, small changes and precise information. However, not everyone on the autism spectrum is the same. Some are detail-focussed, some can be detail-focussed and big-picture thinkers, and some can be big-picture thinkers.
Sources and Further Reading:
The weak coherence account: detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum disorders – PubMed
Frontiers | Weak central coherence in neurodevelopmental disorders: a comparative study
My Autism Life After Diagnosis 
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