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Comment by User23 | Hacker News Reader

My wife does this to me. She'll be talking about something and I'm not listening but I make semi-plausible automatic responses. Sometimes she catches on that I wasn't paying attention and calls me out on it. At that point the last 6-7 seconds of speech pops into my mind like magic and I can pay attention to it and respond. Sadly sometimes that's not enough to deduce what she was talking about.

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Yes! We informally referred to this as the "double-take phenomenon", and our hunch is that this is exactly what is going on.

During my Ph.D, I would often spot this on my way to the lab. I would be seated in the subway early in the morning, and suddenly realize that the name of a station had just been announced, but that I hadn't heard it. Then, it was suddenly like I had heard it -- as if the trace sensory signal in auditory cortex had been isolated and amplified by my attentional system, before it fully dissipated.

It was (and still is) super cool.

Probably quite a separate phenomenon, but if I wake when it's still night and I want to know what time it is, I'll often blink my eyes open for a tiny fraction of a second to see the glowing alarm clock. I often don't know what time it is until I "read" the time from my memory. (It's either my memory or the after-image on my retina.)

When my partner does this to me I call it his "audio buffering" mode -- he'll be absorbed in something and make no indication that he's heard me, but if I wait long enough (in the 15-60 second range), it'll suddenly make it all the way to his conscious attention and he'll respond as though there was no gap at all.

My wife and I say “I back heard you”. it’s kind of a funny in-joke for us because of the quasi non-sense word.

I use similar techniques (plus muscle memory, visual, etc.) as a short term memory scratch pad - especially when highly sleep deprived.

Sounds like inattentive ADHD or auditory processing disorder, where symptoms like this are typical. Unless you are thoughtfully meaning to give plausible responses instead of pay attention, then nvm!

Please don't throw around diagnoses like that. You're not wrong, but the hallmark of psychiatric disorders is usually degree, not nature. Everybody checks out from time to time; ADHD people just do it more. You are not equipped to make that call, here.

You never heard women nagging?

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