Colorblind

I have heard (and used) this analogy before, but I like the way the adaption is described put in this comment from an older post:

A sociopath is like a color-blind person who sees the world in shades of gray but who has learned how to function in a colored world. He has learned that the light signal for “stop” is at the top of the traffic light. When the color-blind person tells you he stopped at the red light, he really means he stopped at the top light. . . . Like the color-blind person, the sociopath lacks an important element of experience—in this case, emotional experience—but may have learned the words that others use to describe or mimic experiences that he cannot really understand.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/how-spot-sociopath