title: Veridical mapping in savant abilities, absolute pitch, and synesthesia: an autism case study.
abstract: An enhanced role and autonomy of perception are prominent in autism. Furthermore, savant abilities, absolute pitch, and synesthesia are all more commonly found in autistic individuals than in the typical population. The mechanism of veridical mapping has been proposed to account for how enhanced perception in autism leads to the high prevalence of these three phenomena and their structural similarity. Veridical mapping entails functional rededication of perceptual brain regions to higher order cognitive operations, allowing the enhanced detection and memorization of isomorphisms between perceptual and non-perceptual structures across multiple scales. In this paper, we present FC, an autistic individual who possesses several savant abilities in addition to both absolute pitch and synesthesia-like associations. The co-occurrence in FC of abilities, some of them rare, which share the same structure, as well as FC's own accounts of their development, together suggest the importance of veridical mapping in the atypical range and nature of abilities displayed by autistic people.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, CNRS UMR 5105 Grenoble, France ; Université Lille 3 - Charles de Gaulle Lille, France.
authors.forename: Lucie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bouvet
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, CNRS UMR 5105 Grenoble, France ; Université de Savoie Chambéry, France.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Donnadieu
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition, CNRS UMR 5105 Grenoble, France ; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Paris, France.
authors.forename: Sylviane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Valdois
authors.affiliation: Centre d'Excellence en Troubles Envahissants du Développement de l'Université de Montréal, Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies Montréal, Canada.
authors.forename: Chantal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Caron
authors.affiliation: Centre d'Excellence en Troubles Envahissants du Développement de l'Université de Montréal, Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies Montréal, Canada.
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dawson
authors.affiliation: Centre d'Excellence en Troubles Envahissants du Développement de l'Université de Montréal, Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies Montréal, Canada.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mottron
keywords: autism; cognition; savant abilities; synesthesia; veridical mapping