this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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I think the actual worst part about this is that pattern recognition isn’t supposed to be a neurodivergent thing. Pattern recognition is like a built in feature in humans, but most people have it beat out of them in school
Like so much else, it's a trained skill. You don't have pattern recognition beaten out. You just aren't so heavily invested in a subject that you get it stamped in.
It's not as though we're born with the ability to hear Morse Code, for instance. You have to develop an ear for it.
It's also a double edged sword, especially when you queue in on a pattern without understanding the reason behind it. Plenty of patterns are purely coincidental.
Picking out a "message" in a series of sounds doesn't mean the dish washer is talking to you.
I agree and disagree. Pattern recognition is a trained skill, for you have learn to recognize each pattern. Pattern recognition is not, however, a trained skill in the way that you have to learn to recognize patterns at all.
However, during school most people have their ability to recognize patterns at all severely diminished due to “gotcha” questions on tests, questions that specifically are designed to catch you out using pattern recognition. This trains the person to not trust their pattern recognition, and in some cases people will actually learn to go against their pattern recognition because they assume things are trying to catch that
The joke of that technique is these questions become a pattern unto themselves. Despite middling grades in high school, I aced a number of standardized tests in large part because the "bullshit" gotcha questions stuck out like sore thumbs to me.
Again, I throw back to the person listening for conversational queues in the banging of their washing machine.
You shouldn't trust pattern recognition on its face. It's deceptively easy to pick out a false signal in white noise.
There's more to be said on this, with certain schools (particularly religious or highly ideological academic settings) focusing on uncritical acceptance of official dogma or a state-designated axiomatic understanding of a certain subject. But that goes above and beyond teaching people not to trust their pattern recognition skills.
I thought that's part of the reason we excelled as a species, seeing the patterns to eat or run from and knowing which is which. Plus getting curious about new ones and if they dont eat us figuring out what to do with them.