Autism 3 – Central Coherence - Victoria University of Wellington自闭症3–中央连贯性-惠灵顿维多利亚大学.ppt

PSYC443 - AutismCentral Coherence Dr Jason Low School of Psychology Victoria University of Wellington Limitations to theory of mind EFT deficit based accounts ToM and EF deficits may explain problems in autism But people with autism also show superior performance savant skills in music, maths, art... excellent memory for facts... jigsaw puzzle and other spatial skills... noticing tiny changes, perfect pitch... Current deficit accounts (ToM, EF) can’t explain these Central Coherence In autism, specific imbalance in integration of information at different levels (Frith, 1989) In normal development, we have a tendency to process information in context This contextual processing is missing in autism, so they should be good in tasks that emphasise piece-meal processing Puzzling jigsaws Frith Hermelin (1969) Contrasted performances on two types of jigsaw (jigsaw by shape vs. jigsaw by picture) Autism normal for jigsaw by shape. Hidden Figures Shah Frith (1983) Children’s embedded figures test Children with autism scored above average for their mental age. Block Design Block design test: the big shape has to be copied with the little building blocks So the first step is to separate the given design into appropriate segments Shah Frith (1993): Autistic children obtain a score as good and often even better than normals. Rote Memory Recall string of random words longer than usual digit span: both autistic and normal – remembered end of string (Frith, 1970) But what happens when part of string is a sentence? see-where-the-ship-is-….-early-communicate-leaf-throw Normal – sentence part; autistic – early-communicate-leaf-throw (just as if random) More on rote memory Even with super-long strings – normal children did well Sentence structure and meaning helps Autism: only slightly better at recalling sentences than jumbled words, and overall poorer than normals Elements and their context She took the shoe polish away with her. She took the Polish man away with her. There was