title: Global/local processing in autism: not a disability, but a disinclination.
abstract: It is widely suggested that ASD is characterized by atypical local/global processing, but the published findings are contradictory. In an effort to resolve this question, we tested a large group of children on both a free-choice task and an instructed task using hierarchical local-global stimuli. We find that although children with autism showed a reduced preference to report global properties of a stimulus when given a choice, their ability to process global properties when instructed to do so is unimpaired. These findings support prior claims that people with ASD show a disinclination, not a disability, in global processing, and highlight the broader question of whether other characteristics of autism may also reflect disinclinations rather than disabilities.
authors: Department of Brain and Cognitive Science and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Building 46 Room 4141 (Kanwisher Lab), Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA, kamik@mit.edu.
authors: Kami
authors: K
authors: Koldewyn
authors: Yuhong V
authors: YV
authors: Jiang
authors: Sarah
authors: S
authors: Weigelt
authors: Nancy
authors: N
authors: Kanwisher
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes
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