Tuning Out?

[stephen]

Ok not so much a poll, just wondering if this is a feature of social anxiety or just my own weird brain. On many occasions, particularly when I am working on the computer or focusing on something, I will realise someone is standing beside me and acknowledge them only to find out that they asked me a question and were standing there waiting for me to respond. Apparently I even give them some sort of reply that makes them think I heard what they asked and was just thinking about my answer. (I am generally slow to respond when I do hear a question so I can see where they might get confused there). Anyway, generally I am completely unaware that they asked me something and have to get them to ask again much to their frustration.

 

[Lorraine Manca]

hey! i read about that in my child development textbook, its some kind of auditory processing disorder, hell if i remember the name. but its when your brain doesnt differentiate "noise" from "voices" if that makes sense. dont worry! its a very small problem. the recommendations was that as long as the student can see the person whos talking, they will know to listen for a voice, so tell people you have a sensory problem and have to see them in order to hear them. hope that helps! i hope thats it for you, because it has nothing to do with psychology or social anxiety, i wish you the best!

 

[stephen]

hey! i read about that in my child development textbook, its some kind of auditory processing disorder, hell if i remember the name. but its when your brain doesnt differentiate "noise" from "voices" if that makes sense.

You could be onto something there. That is one of my problems in noisy social settings where there is a lot of background noise. I have to focus so hard to follow any conversation that it can really be exhausting which doesn't help the underlying anxiety.

 

[Lorraine Manca]

You could be onto something there. That is one of my problems in noisy social settings where there is a lot of background noise. I have to focus so hard to follow any conversation that it can really be exhausting which doesn't help the underlying anxiety.

it was really interesting to read about. supposedly people with that problem also have trouble following large group conversations where the members of the conversations are very far apart from each other, go figure! missing the first word of sentences is part of it too. maybe thats whats going on with you!

 

[hangbi92]

I have Attention-deficit disorder and I seem to be slow to answer someone too. But not only talking to people, its hard for me to focus on doing anything

 

[coyote]

Yes, and sometimes with ADD it's a problem with over-focusing. It's sometimes hard to "shift gears" and pull myself away from what I'm doing. So if I'm focusing on something else, it's difficult to formulate a verbal acknowledgment even if I do hear/see the person talking to me.