Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 364, Issue 1522, Pages 1377-1383Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0337
Keywords
autism; Asperger syndrome; savant
Categories
Funding
- Medical Research Council [G0600977] Funding Source: Medline
- Medical Research Council [G0600977] Funding Source: researchfish
- MRC [G0600977] Funding Source: UKRI
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We argue that hyper-systemizing predisposes individuals to show talent, and review evidence that hyper-systemizing is part of the cognitive style of people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). We then clarify the hyper-systemizing theory, contrasting it to the weak central coherence (WCC) and executive dysfunction (ED) theories. The ED theory has difficulty explaining the existence of talent in ASC. While both hyper-systemizing and WCC theories postulate excellent attention to detail, by itself excellent attention to detail will not produce talent. By contrast, the hyper-systemizing theory argues that the excellent attention to detail is directed towards detecting 'if p, then q' rules (or [input-operation-output] reasoning). Such law-based pattern recognition systems can produce talent in systemizable domains. Finally, we argue that the excellent attention to detail in ASC is itself a consequence of sensory hypersensitivity. We review an experiment from our laboratory demonstrating sensory hypersensitivity detection thresholds in vision. We conclude that the origins of the association between autism and talent begin at the sensory level, include excellent attention to detail and end with hyper-systemizing.
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