how are you supposed to listen to and understand two things at the same time if our brains are monotaskers and truly cannot focus on more than one task at a time? genuinely so confused right now
you mean to tell me this is something that most people can actually do??
General Discussion/QuestionThanks. I think I fall somewhere in between- I can sort of focus on one of the people talking, but it’s difficult and stressful and I never manage to hear everything they say.
Me too. And I get kinda irritable and overwhelmed when two people are trying to talk to me at the same time because I can't listen to both.
Same. I can hear and understand both and my brain is like freaking the eff out and I can't switch between them. It makes me feel really agitated. I have to tell one person to hold that thought while I direct my attention to the other speaker.
ok this makes a lot more sense. so most people aren’t actually able to understand and process 2 simultaneous conversations?
i think this is why i only allow 1 sound at a time in my apartment lol if the TV is on and my bf plays an audible video off his phone i go into immediate rage
People without APD are capable of filtering a certain amount of sound. So they can filter out one conversation while listening to the other.
We can't do that. We can't filter out or selectively ignore sound, so if two people are talking, or if a car drives past, or there's a TV on in the background, we literally are not able to parse what's being said to us. All the noises just blend into a garbled mess.
I have zero issue with there being multiple sources of sound, as long as I'm not being expected to parse speech at the same time. And even then it doesn't make me angry, I just literally can't understand anything that's being said. Rage might be more along the lines of misophonia or something
This was so easy to understand, thanks. I have issues filtering out noises sometimes. Like, if my kid talks while the tv is on I'll end up not listening to either of them while my brain decides what to listen to. But sometimes it's okay and I can filter out the tv, or the kid lol. If they expect me to reply, it can be a problem. I always thought it was just me being bad at concentrating, but I do that a lot.. everything is just me being bad at _____.
Thank you for sharing/Elaboration on this. I'm going to make note of this any time I need to try to explain this to anyone. And it helped me better understand the differences myself too. Thank you. I even knew a dude who got MAD at me once that I couldn't follow what he was saying under those circumstances in a restaurant and said -I- wad being rude and just bad at tuning the people and noise out... (Table right next to us was drunk, loud as hell, and completely inconsiderate being in public not drunk at their own place or something. And he said I was rude because they're out to have fun and I'm ruining it by being bothered and not just tuning them out... This was long before I had any idea WHY I cant... let alone how to explain it..)
I once heard someone describe this as “closing your ears”.
That makes me think of Opossums collasping their ears to block things out (for sleeping. If I remember right. Natrual Earplugs haha)
I would love to have that ability, omg. I always wish my ears had volume dials.
I knooow, riiight? I completely agree with you! And why I thought of em here like, "People, a lot of us WISH we could close our ears at times..." Lol. So then it was like.. "LIKE A OPOSSOM!" xP
Yaaaasssss omg! My son is autistic and his stimming is so loud. My daughter and husband have ADHD and are agents of chaos. My home is soooo noisy, I wear my ear loops 24/7. I got the ones where you can adjust the sound level. Helps when my kids are asking me for something.
i used to work at a supermarket and there was Nothing worse than when customers asked me a question while there was an announcement played over the speakers. like sorry dude i’ll help you in 20 secs but right now i have no earthly idea what it is that you’re saying to me
This is what happens to me!!!
Finally googled misophonia and that definitely explains the rage I feel lol it’s the same reason I can’t stand hearing dogs lick themselves or people chewing. Always wondered why no one else was going insane
I share this rage!
Same with anyone trying to speak to me when there's a different conversation happening close by. I want to scream I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU AND YOU'RE STRESSING ME OUT WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME
This happens to me at work all the time: I'm listening to one person, then someone in the background starts talking to someone else, and boom I can't understand what any of them are saying. It just becomes sound salad. And then I get really pissed! Like where does that anger come from
It comes from extreme frustration!
"Sound salad"! I must tell my son this, he loves great word combos like "delicious fear".
I’m partial rage share! I more get stressed like ‘who do I listen to and how do I get the other to stop talking without hurting feelings???’
People can technically process multiple conversations. This happens when you're texting multiple people at once. But it's worth noting that you arent truly doing both, you're just switching between the two quickly. For sounds, it matters a lot more if you can't filter out "unimportant" background stimuli (this means filtering for ALL sensory input that happens, not just noise) long enough to focus and then process the meaning/thing/sound intelligibly.
Sort of like hearing someone talk in a low voice in the next room and hearing more of a low rumble instead of being able to clearly pick out each word and meaning. You know they're talking, you heard the noise, but you have no idea what they said. You technically still heard the sound, but you weren't able to process it clearly enough to be useful.
Interesting... This makes me realize how much I can't do that... The switching between the people very quickly... Ironically if to one person I can carry multiple topics.... too much... I overwhelm them... Too much information at once and too many juggled topics. Yet in groups... that's how I feel.
I got wireless headphones to cope with the sporadic sounds from other peoples scrolls and it helped a lot. Even if I hear their sound, I’ve got mine louder in at least one ear, so it messes with my vibe less
I’ve literally made it a rule in my car that if someone is on their phone, it’s gotta be on mute. I always have music on and I need it to be able to relax and focus. But if someone has another sound playing while my music is on, I get overwhelmed and upset
I can’t handle competing noises either, drives me wild. I’m not able to switch between sounds and I hear everything at once and I go into rage mode. It’s total sensory overload
I'm the "some autistic people" in this comment and it's a nightmare. It sounds like listening to a radio with the sound dropping in and out. It's become much much much worse as I've got older though which I really don't understand. It's ruined my life.
This is more what I experience. My brain can’t ‘pick’ one of the sounds so everything muffles together. They hit my brain equally.
Yes, this is my experience too. The sound streams cancel reach other out
This is wild to me, if 2 people are talking at once it completely short circuits my brain and I can't understand a single thing
I was never diagnosed but I definitely struggle with this and it's especially true in any noisy environment, but also true when it comes to have constant background noise (like an AC) which causes me not to pick up on full sentences and only getting a chunk of the meaning I was supposed to recieve. My partner finds it annoying but he's coming around to understand I genuinely struggle with these things and it isn't for a lack of trying.
Thanking for restoring my sanity, the description op found leaves out the major components you provided
This is 100% me. Somehow I completely miss that filter. So its very hard to listen to someone or something when there is a lot of noise around me at the same time. It's all on the same volume and intensity for me.
And this is why being in public with people is annoying and why being in public in a group of people make me feel like my head is gonna explode. What the fuck am i supposed to be paying attention to and how can i possibly do so with all these voices. It’s hard enough trying to ignore my own in my head.
i will be able to focus on one person talking only. if i try to hear both, i will actually hear nothing 🧍♂️
no literally same!! like it honestly sounds like those videos where people speak gibberish in their language just to give you an idea of what the language sounds like to a native speaker
sometimes when I’m really stressed or overwhelmed i can’t even process one person talking to me in a quiet setting. like my brain forgets that it has to go beyond just hearing the sounds of words lol
omg, often when i try to listen to what someone is saying to me i end up in a state of derealization and have such a hard time taking information in 😭 but it's mostly with people i mask around (i guess it could be due to thinking about 6374 things at the same time like eye contact, giving appropriate reactions etcetc).
anyways i went a bit off topic oops. but i feel like quietness can be overwhelming in its own way. when its just me and some person in a quiet, calm environment, it can be even worse than if we were in a more "busy" environment. maybe because this person's attention is entirely on me and can't be distracted by anything?
again, SAME, i spend some conversations trying so hard to listen that i come out without actually understanding a single word. you’re right, i think it’s definitely related to how hard i’m masking..and then the person finally stops talking and it’s your turn and you realize you literally have no idea what you guys are talking about despite being right there lmao
my ex bf also never understood how i could watch an entire tv show or movie and not know a single thing that happened. but everything is literally just shapes and colors and sounds to me unless i manually make my brain pay attention 🤷🏼♀️
yeah and for me, the longer the other person is talking for, the harder it becomes to focus. and also harder to think of a response. i think it also has to do with me coming up with a reply to the person's "point A" and kinda getting stuck on it, while this person has already moved on to "point B". not sure if you'll understand what i mean but hopefully 🙏
i didn't even think of connecting it to watching shows!! but it makes sense. i mean, if i'm naturally interested in some show/series, then it's easier to pay attention. however, another problem i have while watching anything is feeling restless and getting distracted (something can happen in a show that triggers a thought that needs to be thought, and then it just ends up with me thinking about stuff for a long time while the vid i was watching is paused ☠️)
i feel silly responding with another same but i know exactly what you mean with that example and it’s so frustrating lol thank you for putting it into words!! i’ve never heard someone actually describe that experience but when someone other than close friends or family is talking to me, i’m not actually listening, i’m just waiting for a string of words that i can come up with an appropriate response to. so then i try to hold onto that response so i have something to say, and then they just… keep going….
THISSS !! then by the time they're done and it's my turn to say something, i could be so lost that i respond with one word or say nothing and just try to react with my face somehow, i always feel awful during these moments 😅 but because of the pressure my mind just feels blank
Manually paying attention could define like 90% of the actions I take on a daily basis. Like even breathing no has become something I have to practice tuning into or else enter the rage so many have mentioned.
Yeah, it's like the two conversations (or whatever interfering noise or even visual/tactile distraction) are put in a blender and chaotic noise comes out.
Have you tried listening to 3 at once? Maybe it‘s modulo 2.
This does not mean an NT child can listen to both at the same time. I'm willing to bet being able to do so is a rather rare gift.
It simply means voice/sound A is blocking voice/sound B and vice versa. Most NTs should be able to mentally block one of their choice to hear the other.
Tinnitus sufferers know this all too well - often we cannot hear beyond the ringing in our ears if there is any other sound in the room except for that which has our focus.
I’ve commented this before, but I’m an audiologist. I’ve had ALL the auditory processing testing done on me, because that’s how we learned how to do it - classmates testing each other. I decidedly do not have auditory processing disorder, as I passed all the tests with no weaknesses. I did, however, identify an ADHD classmate as having APD. This dichotic listening thing is just one of the many, many checks they do, because there are several “areas of weakness” that can be identified based on the various tests performed.
However, I still prefer to watch everything with captions. I don’t know why, I feel like I process writing better. My mom and my brother have actual hearing loss, so we’ve been using captions for over 20 years now. It’s why if I’m going to see a movie at the theater, I’m making an effort to go to Open Caption showings - I want them to keep offering this option for other people who might need it too!
Also, a good 2/3 of patients I see complain of difficulty understanding speech in background noise. A good number of people under age 40 don’t have identifiable hearing loss, so maybe they’re all ND and don’t know it 🤷🏻♀️
i swear i’ve had an APD for years but every time i went to the dr, they just tested that i could hear in both ears and gave me a pass. i used to work as a waitress in a diner, waffle house specifically, which has the grill and dish pit/all that out in the open. so when it would get busy and the dish pit would get extremely loud, i’d be unable to hear my customers. i was great at my job, worked there for four years, but i dreaded this bc it gave me so much anxiety being completely unable to make out what people were saying. it wasnt that the restaurant noise drowned out my customers, it was just that the loud background noise would blend with the foreground noise into one giant wall of indiscernible sound, my brain doesnt have the cocktail party effect essentially.
eta i’m not sure what qualifies as an APD now that i think about it; in certain settings i don’t have a problem as long as the background noise is just that - quiet background noise, like a coffee shop. above a certain decibel level the background and foreground will completely blend
Basically, you need to find someone who specializes in APD to do the extensive testing. It can take an hour or more. The pure tone testing, where we declare “normal” hearing, is the bare minimum.
What you’re describing is a difference in “signal to noise ratio”, or the volume of the speech source over the background noise, and it’s not uncommon to have less difficulty when the source is louder over a softer background noise, like as you say in a coffee shop. Some people with APD do well with low-amplifying hearing aids, because it gives them enough of a boost to hear the speech sound over the background noise.
thank you for your input! i think i should definitely get tested then if i can afford it; i currently wrk at a dog grooming salon. the back of the salon is where the kennels, kennel dryers, and velocity dryers are as well as the bathing bunker. as you can imagine, it gets deafening even when the dogs aren’t going insane barking. even if nobody is using a velocity dryer and it’s just the kennel dryers (much quieter, low-moderate level background noise) i still can’t hear what my coworkers are saying unless they shout it or say it directly into my ear! then again, aids wouldn’t help much in that setting because i have to use ear protection due to having sensory issues. but hearing aids could help so much in general life settings omg. e.g., the low background noise i described earlier is fine until that person is more than a few feet away from me - they might as well be talking into the wind. it gives me SO much anxiety to constantly ask people to repeat themselves 4, 5 times, especially because i’m quite young and a lot of people get irate about it 😣 my old coworkers used to have this running joke where they’d say my name over and over and over again while i was turned away from them doing something and i’d just not respond bc i couldn’t hear it
Some insurances cover this particular testing, some don’t, and not all providers accept insurance.
I’ve worked at a boarding facility that offered grooming so I’m certainly aware of the volume of those dryers, the dogs, the vacuums, the…well everything. Keep using your hearing protection!
If there’s too much/conflicting sounds I can’t make out anything of value. Unless my adrenaline is up. Also too many conflicting sounds (ie my three small kids all being close and loud at the same time) will make me glitch and want to curl up and cover my ears 🫠
lol i can’t be around one of my sisters because she, as an over 30 adult woman, SCREAMS when she talks. the best way i can describe it is squawking. i have to put noise cancelling headphones on when around her or i get extremely overstimulated. i used to have these noise cancelling headphones (btw for fellow autists who get overstimulated easily, i HIGHLY suggest investing in these even if it’s a used pair), they were BOSE Quiet Comfort earbuds, the highest level of noise cancelling on the market. i could be walking along a highway and i’d put those babies in, silence. the only thing that truly penetrated those earbuds was my goddamned sisters voice.
I’m dying 😂 this is hilarious! My middle kid is like that God I love her so much but I have to constantly tell her to stop yelling because I’m literally right next to her 🤣 I have Sony headphones but I’m still in that awkward kid stage where they’re a little more independent, but I have to be alert at all times in case someone is fighting or getting hurt (which is all the time) 🫠
I have good auditory memory, so while I have this sensory processing disorder and had massive issues in childhood with hearing and understanding spoken language that was affected by multiple factors, including this one, I can sometimes as an adult let two people talk at the same time and use my memory to check what was said in the slight past while actually consciously ignoring trying to process what’s happening in the moment.
Brains are weird. I’m invisibly handicapped. It’s extremely hard to be alive.
Thank you for sharing. I suddenly understand how I was able to manage multiple conversations when I was growing up.
I had a good auditory memory too. I could be totally not paying attention to whatever my mom was saying, but when she'd demand that I prove that I was listening I could repeat back the entire last paragraph of whatever she'd said word for word.
I think my auditory memory has diminished since then.
This explains why I don’t mind being in a group setting, until the person next to me decides to break from the group and start a simultaneous conversation with me. It irritates the fuck out of me!
I have APD and I almost had a meltdown this morning when my boyfriend and the MC on the radio talked at the same time lol
This is very overstimulating for me. I can’t focus on either when both are speaking. It’s the same if a tv and radio are on. I get so flustered.
I absolutely struggle to do this and it makes me profoundly anxious. I am especially anxious if they are both speaking at the same volume, but at a different pitch OR there are multiple competing sounds. I also have hearing loss too. Anyway I will mention this to my speech therapists
Thank you
This is so hard for me. Usually I get quickly upset. Unfortunately it’s usually my two young kiddos talking at me simultaneously and all I hear is sounds but no actual conversation. I will have to ask them to both stop talking and then I’ll address one at a time.
Sometimes when I'm not quite paying attention to what someone is saying, I can sort of play back my memory of the sounds and figure it out the second time around. (I think that's how it works for me, anyway.) I suppose it's possible that I could "play back" two simultaneous conversations, one after the other. I can't remember ever doing that though.
I have this and before I knew it was to do with Autism, it caused A LOT of problems for me at work.
I can't handle loud music at work. Don't get me wrong, I love music...just not at work.
When there's loud music playing and someone is trying to talk to me, it's almost like the person speaking is under water or speaking another language that I'm not fluent in. I have to turn the music down in order to understand the person talking.
Does anyone here watch musicals? It is so painful to me when one character is singing their story and another character starts singing something different at the same time. Not a question/response type thing, two different “stories” overlap. Evidently some people can follow that? It ruins the whole show for me, makes me frustrated and grumpy.
OMG I never thought of that. I just assumed we weren’t supposed to know what they say and it must not be important because the other person sang over them. How much have I missed 0.0
Me to my music teacher: OK, so I get that these 4 notes together makes a single chord.....but how do you hear it???
Teacher: wdym...?
Me: I mean, all the sounds are playing at once, how do you hear any of them? How do you know the chord is right? How do you remember what each note sounds like after you play all of them, and how do you remember what chord you're trying to make?? Is there a trick to knowing which instrument is doing what when they're all going?
Teacher: No, you just listen.
Me: So...you're supposed to just know?
Teacher: Listen. *plays one note, then another* Can you hear the difference?
Me: No. Well I mean, I could sorta, but then I forgot it when you played the second sound. They all sound the same??
Now I know that I have aphantasia/anaurelia which causes short term memory (and goal setting) issues and SPD/APD (sensory/auditory processing issues) because of my adhd/autism. Yayyyyy.... I honestly just tell people Im hard of hearing or partially deaf because its so much easier to explain that way and it lets me use sign language more often.
Omg I thought it was just me!! There's an actual...Thing for this?? thank you for sharing. I am always telling people I cannot focus and understand what they're saying when anyone else is talking same volume as them or near me... It makes a mess of what's said, merges, and I'm lost... Nothing makes sense. OR....it's all noise... Why loud restaurants I cant focus on someone talking to me... too much going on from noises to other conversations around me... Also I can't retain things well in short term... Unless it's hurtful then it scars. And have trouble taking notes keeping up.... (Is that part the processing delay I've seen others mention? Hope this came out right.... Quality sleep is elusive)
I second your shock and awe.
my brain either picks the louder sound to listen to, especially if it’s music or I get overstimulated and start thinking wtf is going on rn. v frustrating at work when I cannot hear customers bc of other noises 💀
I have a hard time understanding what’s going on around me when there’s multiple streams of auditory info. It makes me anxious and angry.
People talking o er the tv is a nightmare for me - I can’t hear either…..!! I just don’t get how they can take in the programme and each other at the same time!!??
I thought this was everyone...
I found out I had this years ago, before I even thought I was ND. I was ranting about this struggle to a friend (I don't even remember why lol) and he just said: Oh, that's APD, look it up. Suddenly my fear of talking on the phone made a lot more sense. I can't understand much because of the static/etc and have to ask people to repeat themselves often.
This is so wild to me! I literally have the opposite problem, but the sensory overwhelm and extreme agitation are the same. My brain literally focuses on every single sound and blasts them simultaneously. It gives equal focus to all of it. Like if at a cafe, I can hear every conversation and it’s like 5 people in my face talking at once and hearing all 5 people. I can only describe it as like a party trick where someone can write or draw with both hands simultaneously.
Edit: I forgot to add I can understand all 5 conversations too.
My allistic partner can listen to multiple conversations at the same time. It's not complelty foolproof but at work he has no issues with having an active conversation on the phone while monitoring whatever issues his team is talking about, and coming up with solutions while at it. And there is always music playing in their office, and there is one more team, who's conversations he is able to turn out off.
I don't think this is a common allistic talent but others still manage to function and do their jobs in there, while I would wither and die in such an environment. If I could understand a single word would be a miracle.
Memory unlocked: My mom's family is highly talkative. (I can be both super talkative and extra quiet, but that's irrelevant.) when I was a teenager, We had a rare family get together where there were more than nine of us present in a small living room. All of us were holding two or three separate conversations at the same time and keeping up.
That would be completely impossible for me now. The noise level was insane for me even then. One of my cousins had to step out because of it, and eventually I did too. These days, any louder noise, or multiple people talking within earshot, would make it impossible for me to focus on and understand what the person is saying. I've had to stop people and ask them to please repeat, because I heard the noise but my brain wouldn't translate the words.
I'm not really sure when I lost the ability to do that. I think it happened gradually after I first moved out of my mother's house, and stopped being around her side of the family as much. My mother is the most talkative member of the family, so I think the only reason that I developed the ability in the first place was out of self preservation.
I cannot do that whatsoever
Arrrrrrg. And it actually gets worse 😖
Yes, this is why it is difficult for me to understand people without a mask. (I can read lips)
is this like how i can’t understand someone if the tv is playing and is there a name for the fact that i need to turn down music so i can see on the occasion i drive
This speaks to my ADHD more. I struggle so much with this!
as a nuerodivergent musician, i have trained my ears to be able to hear and comprehend two conflicting things at one time... if i werent a musician tho things would definitely be different, and i don't think i'd be able to focus on or understand either one, especially if they are both speaking at similar volumes. you are not alone!
Normal brains are able to tune out background voices and focus on the one they want/need to listen to. Our APD brains cannot filter out sounds and voices properly to focus on what one is saying so it becomes a jumbled mess for us
I sometimes hear the word left when my maps app says right. Not sure if that dyslexia or APD… I’m sure I have all of the ASD fun features.
one more disorder to my list that I sins know I have...
honestly what in the actual F is this supposed to be anyway. why would anyone be expected to hear 2 different sets of speech from 2 different people at the same dame time. that's ridiculous. proves nothing. one at a time is how talking works. if not then you're not to listen to either one cuz ur not in the conversation. and they're being rude. it's called 'stereo' for a reason. people don't play something different at the same time from 2 different speakers. or headphones. 2 ears. ONE MOUTH. smh
I’ve watched plenty of people be able to hear multiple people at the same time. I have ADHD too so you’d think “chaos” in my ears would be doable. But my autism is stronger, if this in fact where it stems from. I only bring up ADHD because my friends with ADHD can talk on the phone, while walking around, while doing something like shopping all while they are talking to me next to them. I’m always amazed at that ability.
Odd because I can take part in around three conversations at once and it does my head in!!
My daughter has this!!!
I've always been astonished by the remarkable ability of language interpreters to listen and speak simultaneously. How do they do that??
I sit between both depending on the situation and where I’m at with social battery, emotional state and sensory load; my medication is also a factor.
At huge social events, I tend to blur my eyes and keep them diverted to reduce my sensory load, but it gets to a point where if I can’t focus on a conversation, even when they’re right there in front of me, I go outside for a smoke or I go to the bathroom and hide in there for a hot minute. The bathroom cubicles are usually chill enough to get my head clear enough to think of what I’m going to do next.
The short answer is that this explanation is wrong.
Most people will be able to focus on one speaker and understand them, while ignoring the other speaker. (Cocktail party effect). Only hearing/understanding one of the two speakers is normal; that's how selective attention works.
Some autistic people struggle to separate background/competing noise from the auditory input they're trying to focus on, so they would be unable to hear/understand the speaker they're focusing on (thus understanding neither of the two sources).