I went to a Doctor to get my hearing checked, but he said it was fine and that I had to try and pay attention more. The thing is that I will sometimes hear perfectly audible statements but won’t be able to make sense of them as if I did not hear them. Most people think I’ve got a hearing problem when really I am just not paying any attention to what they are saying.
I try to listen, but it does not always work out, I don’t really know why. Too much effort I guess.
Anyone else have this kind of problem, where you are not paying attention and the person mistakes this for a hearing problem?
I think that my problem is that I pay too much attention.
People often approach me while I’m concentrating on something and start talking to me without getting my attention first. This causes me to miss the first part of what they said. Maybe other people can switch their attention that fast, but I just can’t.
I don’t think people think I have a hearing problem, because if they did they would simply repeat themselves–which is exactly what I need them to do. Instead, even when I ask them “Could you repeat that?”, they always start to expand upon the statement or question that I didn’t catch in the first place. The additional information is useless to me since I have nothing to add it to. I have to try to figure out what’s going on in exactly the same way as when I come in on the middle of someone else’s conversation.
I have had to train all my family and friends to call my name and wait until I answer or look them in the eye before telling me (or, especially, asking me) something.
I had teachers send me off to have hearing tests at least a couple of times while I was in school. My hearing always came back as fine – the problem was I’d become so engrossed in doing something in class, there was no way I’d hear them call my name until it was repeated a few times.
I still go off on a different dimensional plane when I’m working. Folk sometimes have to come into my peripheral field of view before I realise they are talkin’ to me.
Happened to me when I was a kid. I had to go through hearing tests, the whole bit. Turns out I was just a little space cadet who was off in his own little world and not paying any attention.
Huh. I still think I have a slight hearing problem, even though I was told a couple of months ago that I don’t. There is a noticeable difference between my right and left ears, though it’s pretty slight.
It drives me nuts when my SO doesn’t respond when I talk to him, because if I’m reading something (say, the SDMB) and somebody talks to me I can respond without ever actually comprehending what was said. In my family, you have to make sure the person has put the book down, or looked away from the computer, or whatever. Yet he swears he hears me even if he never gives me the slightest indication. I know I’m not capable of doing that. If I don’t respond, I didn’t hear you. If I did respond, I might still not have heard you.
I have the exact opposite problem. I have what I consider to be fairly significant hearing loss (though really since it doesn’t require a hearing aid it can’t be that bad right? My doctor explained it to me by saying I am a 23 year old woman with the hearing of a 45 or 50 year old man.) Since I often can’t make out exactly what you are saying if you are talking to me and I am not looking at you I tend to think you are on the phone or talking to yourself and go about my business. It isn’t that I am not paying attention, I simply can’t hear you!
When I get really engrossed in what I’m doing, I usually don’t hear it when someone tries to get my attention. It’s come down to co-workers shooting rubber bands at me to get my attention when I’m “in the zone”.
