Trouble concentrating and processing info (real life and TV)

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I have a great deal of trouble following tv show/movie plots involving multiple characters and storylines. I also find that I forget what I have watched after a short while, whereas my mum (who has no autism) remembers movies/shows better than I do, even if it is a show/movie I am more interested in.

I think I find it difficult to follow plots because my mind processes information slowly. I also find this when my mind tries to process jokes, especially clever ones. Everyone in the audience will laugh instantly whereas it will take me about 10 seconds to get the logic behind the joke.

Is this a common problem for people on the spectrum? It is really frustrating because it makes me feel like a hopeless idiot when other people seem to be able to focus and process info quicker than me.

Yes, it is common from what I've seen here. No, you're not an idiot. Your processing speed isn't your intelligence.

Other than not remembering what happened in previous episodes, I get what you're saying. I also get it when reading, where I look over the words and have to go back because none were going in. If something suddenly happens very fast on TV I really do need to go back and focus completely so I'm not at complete loss. And jokes do tend to go in slower. Slightly related, when people used to speak to me I'd be like "what did you say?". But even before they begin to repeat it I will answer their question. Used to make my dad angry

Yeah, I'm this way too.

My processing speed for jokes, dialog, mental math, problem solving, reflexes, everything, is just slow as s**t.

It kind of sucks but whatever.

Also I do this weird thing where, when I'm watching a movie, I never know what the names of any of the characters are. I just identify them in my mind as that character that looks a certain way. And then after the movie, when someone asks me who my favorite character was I realize that I actually don't know what any of their names were.

I don't know about processing speed, but I think autistic people tend to have these problems more often than the general population:

Difficulty interpreting facial expression and tone of voice, at least the way most people use them. This is one of the key diagnostic symptoms. If you have this problem badly enough, it could cause you to miss some of the subtle information being communicated.

Auditory processing issues, i.e. even if you can hear fine, your brain has trouble processing it and understanding speech.

Difficulty recognizing faces (prosopagnosia) - You'd have a harder time than most people distinguishing characters in TV/movies.

Hypersensitivity - This means sensory input is a bigger deal, which makes it harder to ignore irrelevant input. Also, the higher susceptibility to sensory overload means you're more likely to feel stressed out, which I think naturally comes with temporarily decreased cognitive abilities.

If you have any of these traits (or a combination of them) badly enough, it can make it hard to understand these sorts of things. You would not be getting some of the information that the speaker or the TV director is expecting you to receive, so you'd have to think about it to fill in the blanks. As an analogy, imagine two people who can read well are given the same text to read except one copy has the second half of every word whited out. The person who gets the white-out version could probably figure it out eventually, but it will take a lot longer because they are missing part of the info and they have to decipher what it says instead of just reading it normally.

I have a lot of hypersensitivity and a minor problem with the other three, and it's enough that I have trouble understanding verbal instructions and TV takes enough concentration that it slightly spoils the fun.

If you do feel like cognition or processing speed is the problem, there is a condition named Sluggish Cognitive Tempo. It's not officially recognized (e.g. by the DSM), but it has been studied for a while, so you can find some info on the internet. The key trait is that people just think more slowly than normal, regardless of intelligence. Proponents of making it an official diagnosis believe that many of the people diagnosed with inattentive-type ADHD should be diagnosed with SCT instead.

I feel your pain.

With movies and TV shows, I always need to go online and read up on what exactly I just watched. Or sometimes if I really liked the movie, then I'll just rewatch it multiple times. It just goes too fast for me. I've tried to explain it to people before, but have typically gotten some belittling "Uh, it really wasn't complicated at all." remark in response. Sometimes I feel like a huge idiot, but it is what it is, I guess.

It's even worse with real life conversations, because it's not uncommon for the words that somebody says to just completely go over my head or the meaning to be a bit jumbled. It's worse because, unlike a movie, most of the time you're required to respond to whatever they said and you don't have very long to do so. I think a lot of my responses to people don't exactly line up with whatever they said in the first place and often times I'll realize something after the conversation that I should have noticed/thought of during. It's really frustrating and part of why socializing is so tiring for me. I'm always having to somewhat "keep up" instead of actively participating/enjoying the conversation.

I have these problems, too.

Yep, me too. A recent example was the PBS presentation of Wolf Hall. Other than Cromwell and Henry VIII, all the characters looked the same to me. It did not help that they were all covered head to foot in similar clothing, including hats, and the men often had beards, meaning there was only a small bit of visible face to aid in recognition.