Issues with involuntarily noticing EVERY typo...

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www(.)scientificamerican(.)com/article/enhanced-visual-attention-may-be-early-predictor-of-autism/

Read this and wondered how this characteristic intense attention to detail - more specifically, the types of details that stand out - affects others. Do you view it as a strength, impairment, both, or neither?

My brain focuses on the odd and outlying members of any set, no matter how minute...or how much I am NOT looking for them; for me it manifests mostly in noticing typos in everything. It's something NTs are usually super impressed by as a "superpower", but it's one of those things where they can't really know what it's like to experience...it can often feel like a curse. It grows to be very frustrating to see so many dozens of typos everywhere in the world every day that most people don't see - even things that have presumably been proofread (professional journalism, prose, product packaging, print advertisements...)! I honestly don't understand how many of these things get published/manufactured...how can people miss these typos????? On any given supermarket trip I notice up to a dozen typos of various packaging. I understand they're NT and all, but still...it gets so painfully frustrating for me.

It gets especially frustrating because people do not usually like having these errors pointed out to them.

As a proofreader, it's an invaluable skill to be able to glance at a document and notice every error within a few seconds. But as a human attempting to function in a world where error-ridden text hits you from all angles almost non-stop, it's extremely frustrating and distracting; it can be difficult to the point of impossible to focus on the actual content when all my single-tasking brain can focus on is every typo jumping out at me as if it were highlighted...to me it feels like they are. On days when I'm especially visually or cognitively sensitive, they can feel like a relentless series of micro-assaults against my brain.

Do others experience anything similar?

I've lost a lot of friends with me noticing, and pointing out, their verbal grammatical errors. I suppose it can get annoying to them so I've learned to back off. Like you said, however, these errors can be painful to bear but such is life. I'm learning to take things with a grain of salt.

I always do that with my friend. He immigrated from Nicaragua to province of Québec and his written french is really mediocre. I can't resist to tell him the ortographic and grammar mistakes he makes in his math homework

Having been a professional writer and editor for some years, I can't even read books without correcting and editing the text mentally. Now, that's entertainment! For the record, even J.R.R. Tolkien couldn't punctuate correctly or consistently.

Oh gosh yes I do this sooooooo much. I'd make an awesome proofreader. I've been reading a lot of academic papers lately and every time I see a typo I cringe and make a huge fuss over it.

However, as previously mentioned -- I've spent a lot of time interacting with newcomers and folks who are still learning English. And I also have the tendency to pick up on and involuntarily copy other people's communication habits, right.... so now, I find myself making typos and grammatical errors quite often in casual conversation and texting. I can't seem to correct myself, it's like I'd need to consciously spend time around more native English speakers again or something. D: Although, every error I can trace back to exactly who I got it from, so at least there's that.

Oh no. I tried to edit my post to add a comma to that second sentence and now I can't because the website just keeps logging me out when I try.

Oh yes.I am a spelling and grammar 'fascist'.

Just today when at a gaming store I was intensely irritated by a hand-written note stating that a free [something that I can't recall] would be given for every headphone set "brought" [sp.] ....

This just completely dislocates my mind. Its "bought" not "brought".

Similarly at work, when writing audit reports, people insist on "siting" documents when they should "sight" the documents.

Can anybody explain a logical justification for the popular phrase "I could care less" ? Surely it should be "I couldn't care less" ? If somebody explains the "could" version satisfactorily, I will give up my hostility to it.

Yeah this is me. Thankfully it's not like an allergy for me, but I do notice, every time.

I make way fewer typos than the vast majority of native speakers in 3 different languages. I've stopped pointing out other people's typos because it annoys them, especially when it's "their" language and not mine.

In my 4th language though I'm a total barbarian because I'm just learning it slowly by osmosis, rather than sitting down with books and dictionaries like I did with the others (no time - work & kids). That finally cured me of the "anyone who confuses there, their or they're is an idiot" attitude I had when I was younger