Word for someone who pays attention to details

Consider punctilious, meticulous, and persnickety.

punctilious: strictly attentive to minute details.

meticulous: taking or showing extreme care about minute details.

persnickety: paying extremely close attention to details.

Also, consider "astute observer."

This may not answer your question, but if you consult the following web site

http://www.jocrf.org/resources/index.html

you may find at least a partial answer to your question, and that is: a person who is high in graphoria. That is a term coined by Johnson O'Connor of the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation (jocrf in the hyperlink). Graphoria is one of many aptitudes which O'Connor identified and measured in his life's work of matching people with jobs for which they were more-or-less ideally suited by aptitudes.

Graphoria relates to the ability to do "number checking" tasks quickly and efficiently without a great deal of effort. People high in graphoria are detail oriented and are able to scan words, numbers, lists, and symbols and manipulate them in numerous ways with a good deal of accuracy. They make good speed readers. Interestingly, former President Kennedy was high in graphoria and was also a speed reader, or so I was told.

One reason (and there may be many others) why people who are high in graphoria are so good at "number checking" is because they can focus and refocus on many different details without losing their place. For example, when I am reading a book and taking notes at the same time, I have trouble refocusing on what I'm reading, once I've looked away to take notes. As you can guess, I'm very low in graphoria. My eyes just cannot switch between two sources of words, numbers, lists, and symbols quickly and efficiently. There is definitely some drag time in going from one source to the another. Consequently, I would make (and have been!) a terrible clerk.

What I lack in graphoria, however, I more than make up for in ideaphoria, which is an aptitude involving the rapid flow of ideas, which equips me for jobs that require that particular skill set. Teachers, advertisers, writers, public speakers, innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs, even lawyers benefit from being high in ideaphoria.

For your own edification, I recommend highly that you look into the Johnson O'Connor website if you are the least bit curious about what your particular aptitudes are and how to exploit the ones in which you measure high, and "work around" the ones in which you measure on the low side.

I understand this thread dates back more than a year, but for someone who, as I stumbled upon this page, is still seeking an answer, how about "detail-oriented"

Percipient is a term with probably a more physical-sense orientated than grasp-the-situation orientated bias than perceptive. (Perhaps through lack of use.)