Memory characteristics in individuals with savant skills

Pring, Linda

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511490101.013

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…When he was asked to name fundamental frequencies in French and English words, his correct discrimination scores exceeded those of the AP possessor comparison participants by six standard deviations. Similarly, Young and Nettelbeck (1995; see also Pring, 2008) found that another savant, T.R., was able to identify the individual component notes in highly complex chords (i.e., chord disembedding) and his scores on tonal memory tasks were near ceiling. He was also able to reproduce by ear the first six-seven bars of tonal and atonal melodies after only one hearing on the piano.…”

Section: Low-level Foundations Of Absolute Pitch In Autismmentioning

confidence: 82%

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities

Mottron¹,

Bouvet²,

Bonnel³

et al. 2013

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

206

162

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Superior perception, peaks of ability, and savant skills are often observed in the autistic phenotype. The enhanced perceptual functioning model (Mottron et al., 2006a) emphasizes the increased role and autonomy of perceptual information processing in autistic cognition. Autistic abilities also involve enhanced pattern detection, which may develop through veridical mapping across isomorphic perceptual and non-perceptual structures (Mottron et al., 2009). In this paper, we elaborate veridical mapping as a specific mechanism which can explain the higher incidence of savant abilities, as well as other related phenomena, in autism. We contend that savant abilities such as hyperlexia, but also absolute pitch and synaesthesia, involve similar neurocognitive components, share the same structure and developmental course, and represent related ways by which the perceptual brain deals with objective structures under different conditions. Plausibly, these apparently different phenomena develop through a veridical mapping mechanism whereby perceptual information is coupled with homological data drawn from within or across isomorphic structures. The atypical neural connectivity characteristic of autism is consistent with a developmental predisposition to veridical mapping and the resulting high prevalence of savant abilities, absolute pitch, and synaesthesia in autism.

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Section: Low-level Foundations Of Absolute Pitch In Autismmentioning

confidence: 82%

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities

Mottron¹,

Bouvet²,

Bonnel³

et al. 2013

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

206

162

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…RPM thus encompasses the kind of multi-level density or redundancy of complex information found in areas in which autistics are known to spontaneously excel (e.g., music, 3-D drawing), given the opportunity (e.g. , Miller 1989;Pring 2008;Heaton 2009;Boso et al 2013; see also Mottron et al 2009Mottron et al , 2013, for a review). At the same time, RPM plausibly carries much less requirement for ''typicality'' in cognitive processes than do Wechsler and similar tests.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does WISC-IV Underestimate the Intelligence of Autistic Children?

Nader

Courchesne

Dawson

et al. 2014

J Autism Dev Disord

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Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) is widely used to estimate autistic intelligence (Joseph in The neuropsychology of autism. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011; Goldstein et al. in Assessment of autism spectrum disorders. Guilford Press, New York, 2008; Mottron in J Autism Dev Disord 34(1):19-27, 2004). However, previous studies suggest that while WISC-III and Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM) provide similar estimates of non-autistic intelligence, autistic children perform significantly better on RPM (Dawson et al. in Psychol Sci 18(8):657-662, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01954.x , 2007). The latest WISC version introduces substantial changes in subtests and index scores; thus, we asked whether WISC-IV still underestimates autistic intelligence. Twenty-five autistic and 22 typical children completed WISC-IV and RPM. Autistic children's RPM scores were significantly higher than their WISC-IV FSIQ, but there was no significant difference in typical children. Further, autistic children showed a distinctively uneven WISC-IV index profile, with a "peak" in the new Perceptual Reasoning Index. In spite of major changes, WISC-IV FSIQ continues to underestimate autistic intelligence.

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“…A greater independence among encoded levels of information would also be involved. For example, a non-autistic expert musician with absolute pitch is far more limited than DP, an autistic savant musician, in disembedding and reproducing (that is, completing or filling-in the pattern of ) the individual notes in large chords ( Pring 2008). Pattern or information completion may also act in combination with typical, conscious cognitive processes.…”

Section: Pattern Completion At a Different Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced perception in savant syndrome: patterns, structure and creativity

Mottron

Dawson

Soulières

2009

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

190

135

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According to the enhanced perceptual functioning (EPF) model, autistic perception is characterized by: enhanced low-level operations; locally oriented processing as a default setting; greater activation of perceptual areas during a range of visuospatial, language, working memory or reasoning tasks; autonomy towards higher processes; and superior involvement in intelligence. EPF has been useful in accounting for autistic relative peaks of ability in the visual and auditory modalities. However, the role played by atypical perceptual mechanisms in the emergence and character of savant abilities remains underdeveloped. We now propose that enhanced detection of patterns, including similarity within and among patterns, is one of the mechanisms responsible for operations on human codes, a type of material with which savants show particular facility. This mechanism would favour an orientation towards material possessing the highest level of internal structure, through the implicit detection of within-and between-code isomorphisms. A second mechanism, related to but exceeding the existing concept of redintegration, involves completion, or filling-in, of missing information in memorized or perceived units or structures. In the context of autistics' enhanced perception, the nature and extent of these two mechanisms, and their possible contribution to the creativity evident in savant performance, are explored.

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Memory characteristics in individuals with savant skills

Cited by 12 publications

References 79 publications

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities

Does WISC-IV Underestimate the Intelligence of Autistic Children?

Enhanced perception in savant syndrome: patterns, structure and creativity

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