The power of the positive: Revisiting weak coherence in autism spectrum disorders

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Volumn 61, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 50-63

  Happé, Francesca G E ^a   Booth, Rhonda D L ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AFFECT; AUTISM; BEHAVIOR; CHILD; COGNITIVE DEFECT; CONFERENCE PAPER; HUMAN; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST; PATHOPHYSIOLOGY; PATTERN RECOGNITION;

AFFECT; AUTISTIC DISORDER; CHILD; COGNITION DISORDERS; FORM PERCEPTION; HUMANS; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS; POWER (PSYCHOLOGY);

EID: 36549012143     PISSN: 17470218     EISSN: 17470226     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/17470210701508731     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (86)

1. Akshoomoff, N. A., & Stiles, J. (1995). Developmental trends in visuospatial analysis and planning: I. Copying a complex figure. Neuropsychology, 9, 364-377.
2. American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
3. Aslin, R. N., & Smith, L. B. (1988). Perceptual development. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 435-473.
4. Baron-Cohen, S. (2006). Two new theories of autism: Hyper-systemising and assortative mating. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 91, 2-5.
5. Bartlett, F. (1932). Remembering. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
6. Bellugi, U., Lichtenberger, L., Jones, W., Lai, Z., & St. George, M. (2000). The neurocognitive profile of Williams syndrome: A complex pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(Suppl. 1), 7-29.
7. Bhatt, R. S., Rovee-Collier, C., & Shyi, G. C. (1994). Global and local processing of incidental information and memory retrieval at 6 months. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 57, 141-162.
8. Booth, R. (2006). Local-global processing and cognitive style in autism spectrum disorder and typical development. Unpublished PhD thesis, King's College London, London, UK.
9. Booth, R., Charlton, R., Hughes, C., & Happé, F. (2003). Disentangling weak coherence and executive dysfunction: Planning drawing in autism, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological &iences, 358, 387-392.
10. Brainerd, C. J., & Gordon, L. L. (1994). Development of verbatim and gist memory for numbers. Developmental Psychology, 30, 163-177.
11. Burack, J. A., Enns, J. T., Iarocci, G., & Randolph, B. (2000). Age differences in visual search for compound patterns: Long- versus short-range grouping. Developmental Psychology, 36, 731-740.
12. Carey, S., & Diamond, R. (1977). From piecemeal to configurational representation of faces. &ience, 195, 312-314.
13. Carey, S., & Diamond, R. (1994). Are faces perceived as configurations more by adults than by children? Visual Cognition, 1, 253-274.
14. Caron, M. J., Mottron, L., Berthiaume, C., & Dawson, M. (2006). Cognitive mechanisms, specificity and neural underpinnings of visuospatial peaks in autism. Brain, 129, 1789-1802.
15. Cohen, L. B., & Younger, B. A. (1984). Infant perception of angular relations. Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 37-47.
16. Colombo, J. (2001). The development of visual attention in infancy. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 337-367.
17. Colombo, J., & Mitchell, D. W. (1990). Individual differences in early visual attention: Fixation time and. information processing. In J. W. Fagen (Ed.), Individual differences in infancy: Reliability, stability, prediction (pp. 193-227). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
18. Colombo, J., Mitchell, D., Coldren, J. T., & Freeseman, L. J. (1991). Individual differences in infant visual attention: Are short lookers faster processors or feature processors? Child Development, 62, 1247-1257.
19. Corah, N. L., & Gospodinoff, E.J. (1966). Color-form and whole-part perception in children. Child Development, 37, 837-842.
20. De Luca, C. R., Wood, S. J., Andersen, V., Buchanan, J.-A., Proffitt, T. M., Mahony, K., et al. (2003). Normative data from the Cantab. I: Development of executive function over the lifespan. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 25, 242-254.
21. Dukette, D., & Stiles, J. (1996). Children's analysis of hierarchical patterns: Evidence from a similarity judgment task. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 63, 103-140.
22. Dukette, D., & Stiles, J. (2001). The effects of stimulus density on children's analysis of hierarchical patterns. Developmental & Science, 4, 233-251.
23. Elkind, D., Koegler, R., & Go, E. (1964). Studies in perceptual development: II. Part-whole perception. Child Development, 35, 81-90.
24. Enns, J. T., & Girgus, J. S. (1985). Developmental changes in. selective and integrative visual attention. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 40, 319-337.
25. Enns, J. T., & Kingstone, A. (1995). Access to global and local properties in visual search for compound stimuli. Psychological & Science, 6, 283-291.
26. Freeseman, L. J., Colombo, J., & Coldren, J. T. (1993). Individual differences in infant visual attention: Four-month-olds' discrimination and generalization of global and local stimulus properties. Child Development, 64, 1191-1203.
27. Frick, J. E., Colombo, J., & Allen, J. R. (2000). Temporal sequence of global-local processing in 3-month-old infants. Infancy, 1, 375-386.
28. Frith, U. (1989). Autism: Explaining the enigma. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
29. Frith, U. (2003). Autism: Explaining the enigma (2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
30. Frith, U., & Snowling, M. (1983). Reading for meaning and reading for sound in autistic and dyslexic children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1, 329-342.
31. Gernsbacher, M. A. (1993). Less skilled readers have less efficient suppression mechanisms. Psychological & Science, 4, 294-298.
32. Ghim, H.-R., & Eimas, P. D. (1988). Global and local processing by 3- and 4-month-old infants. Perception and Psychophysics, 43, 165-171.
33. Gibson, E.J. (1969). Principles of perceptual learning and development. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
34. Gilchrist, A., & McKone, E. (2003). Early maturity of face processing in children: Local and relational distinctiveness effects in 7-year-olds. Visual Cognition, 10, 769-793.
35. Goldberg, M. C., Maurer, D., & Lewis, T. L. (2001). Developmental changes in attention: The effects of endogenous cueing and of distractors. Developmental Science, 4, 209-219.
36. Hala, S., Pexman, P. M., & Glenwright, M. (2007). Priming the meaning of homographs in typically developing children and children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 329-340.
37. Happé, F. (1997). Central coherence and theoiy of mind in autism: Reading homographs in context. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15, 1-12.
38. Happé, F., Briskman, J., & Frith, U. (2001). Exploring the cognitive phenotype of autism: Weak "central coherence" in parents and siblings of children with autism: I. Experimental tests. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 299-307.
39. Happé, F., & Frith, U. (2006). The weak coherence account: Detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum, disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36, 5-25.
40. Heavey, L., Pring, L., & Hermelin, B. (1999). A date to remember: The nature of memory in savant calendrical calculators. Psychological Medicine, 29, 145-160.
41. Hebb, D.O. (1949). The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory. Oxford, UK: Wiley.
42. Iarocci, G., Burack, J. A., Shore, D. I., Mottron, L., & Enns, J. T. (2006). Global-local visual processing in high functioning children with autism: Structural vs. implicit task biases. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36, 117-129.
43. Jarrold, C., Butler, D. W., Cottington, E. M., & Jimenez, F. (2000). Linking theory of mind and central coherence bias in autism and in the general population. Developmental Psychology, 36, 126-138.
44. Jarrold, C., Gilchrist, I. D., & Bender, A. (2005). Embedded figures detection in autism and typical development: Preliminary evidence of a double dissociation in relationships with visual search. Developmental Science, 8, 344-351.
45. Jolliffe, T., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2001a). A test of central coherence theory: Can adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome integrate fragments of an object? Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 6, 193-216.
46. Jolliffe, T., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2001b). A test of central coherence theory: Can adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger syndrome integrate objects in context? Visual Cognition, 8, 67-101.
47. Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217-250.
48. Kanner, L., & Eisenberg, L. (1956). Early infantile autism 1943-1955. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 26, 55-65.
49. Kimchi, R. (1990). Children's perceptual organisation of hierarchical visual patterns. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2, 133-149.
50. Kimchi, R. (1992). Primacy of wholistic processing and global/local paradigm: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 24-38.
51. Kramer, J. H., Ellenberg, L., Leonard, J., & Share, L. J. (1.996). Developmental sex differences in global-local perceptual, bias. Neuropsychology, 10, 402-407.
52. Le Grand, R., Mondloch, C. J., Maurer, D., & Brent, H. P. (2003). Expert face processing requires visual input to the right hemisphere during infancy. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 1108-1112.
53. Meili-Dworetzki, G. (1956). The development of perception in the Rorschach. In B. Klopfer (Ed.), Development in the Rorschach technique. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
54. Mondloch, C. J., Le Grand, R., & Maurer, D. (2002). Configural face processing develops more slowly than fearural face processing. Perception, 31, 553-566.
55. Morgan, B., Maybery, M., & Durkin, K. (2003). Weak central coherence, poor joint attention, and low verbal ability: Independent deficits in early autism. Developmental Psychology, 39, 646-656.
56. Mottron, L., & Burack, J. A. (2001). Enhanced perceptual functioning in the development of autism. In P. R. Zelazo (Ed.), The development of autism: Perspectives from theory and research (pp. 131-148). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
57. Mottron, L., Burack, J. A., Iarocci, G., Belleville, S., & Enns, J. T. (2003). Locally oriented perception with intact global processing among adolescents with high-functioning autism: Evidence from multiple paradigms. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44, 904-913.
58. Navon, D. (1977). Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. Cognitive Psychology, 9, 353-383.
59. Navon, D. (2003). What does a compound letter tell the psychologist's mind? Acta Psychologia, 114, 273-309.
60. O'Riordan, M., Plaisted, K. C., Driver, J., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2001). Superior visual search in autism. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27, 719-730.
61. Pani, J. R., Mervis, C. B., & Robinson, B. F. (1999). Global spatial organization by individuals with Williams syndrome. Psychological & Science, 10, 453-458.
62. Pellicano, E., Maybery, M., & Durkin, K. (2005). Central coherence in typically developing preschoolers: Does it cohere and does it relate to mindreading and. executive control? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46, 533-547.
63. Pellicano, E., & Rhodes, G. (2003). Holistic processing of faces in preschool children and adults. Psychological &ience, 14, 618-622.
64. Pennings, A. (1988). The development of strategies in embedded, figures tasks. International Journal of Psychology, 23, 65-78.
65. Plaisted, K. C. (2001). Reduced generalization in autism: An alternative to weak central coherence. In J. A. Burack, T. Charman, N. Yirmiya, & P. R. Zelazo (Eds.), The development of autism: Perspectives from theory and research (pp. 149-169). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
66. Plaisted, K. C., O'Riordan, M., & Baron-Cohen, S. (1998a). Enhanced discrimination of novel, highly similar stimuli by adults with autism during a perceptual learning task. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 765-775.
67. Plaisted, K. C., O'Riordan, M., & Baron-Cohen, S. (1998b). Enhanced visual search, for a conjunctive target in autism: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 777-783.
68. Porporino, M., Shore, D. I., Iarocci, G., & Burack, J. A. (2004). A developmental change in selective attention and global form perception. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 28, 358-364.
69. Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1994). Development of gist versus verbatim memory in sentence recognition: Effects of lexical familiarity, semantic content, encoding instructions, and retention interval. Developmental Psychology, 30, 178-191.
70. Ridderinkhof, K., & van der Molen, M. W. (1995). A psychophysiological analysis of developmental differences in the ability to resist interference. Child Development, 66, 1040-1056.
71. Shah, A., & Frith, U. (1983). An islet of ability in autistic children: A. research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24, 613-620.
72. Shah, A., & Frith, U. (1993). Why do autistic individuals show superior performance on the block design task? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34, 1351-1364.
73. Slater, A., Mattock, A., Brown, E., & Bremner, J. (1991). Form perception at birth: Cohen and Younger (1984) revisited. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 51, 395-406.
74. Snodgrass, J. G., Smith, B., Feenan, K., & Corwin, J. (1987). Fragmenting pictures on the Apple Macintosh computer for experimental and clinical applications. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 19, 270-274.
75. Snowling, M., & Frith, U. (1986). Comprehension in "hyperlexic" readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 42, 392-415.
76. Stoecker, J. J., Colombo, J., Frick, J. E., & Allen, J. R. (1998). Long- and short-looking infants' recognition of symmetrical and asymmetrical forms. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 71, 63-78.
77. Tada, W. L., & Stiles, J. (1996). Developmental, change in children's analysis of spatial patterns. Developmental Psychology, 32, 951-970.
78. Tada, W. L., & Stiles-Davis, J. (1989). Children's analysis of spatial patterns: An assessment of their "errors" in copying geometric forms. Cognitive Development, 4, 177-195.
79. Takeuchi, A. H., & Hulse, S. H. (1993). Absolute pitch. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 345-361.
80. Tanaka, J. W., Kay, J. B., Grinnell, E., Stansfield, B., & Szechter, L. (1998). Face recognition in young children: When the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Visual Cognition, 5, 479-496.
81. Titchener, E. B. (1909). Lectures on the experimental psychology of the thought-processes. Oxford, UK: Macmillan.
82. van Giffen, K., & Haith, M. M. (1984). Infant visual response to Gestalt geometric forms. Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 335-346.
83. Wertheimer, M. (1938). About Gestalt theory [an address before the Kant Society, Berlin, 17th December, 1924]. In W. D. Ellis (Ed. & Trans.), A source book of Gestalt psychology. Oxford, UK: Harcourt, Brace. (Original work published 1924)
84. Witkin, H. A., Oltman, P. K., Raskin, E., & Karp, S. A. (1971). A manual for the Embedded Figures Test. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
85. Wundt, W. (1902). Outlines of psychology (C. H. Judd, Trans., 2nd ed.). Oxford, UK: Engelmann.
86. Younger, B. A., & Cohen, L. B. (1986). Developmental change in infants' perception of correlations among attributes. Child Development, 57, 803-815.