 |
| Research article summary (published 30 Dec 2001): |
Numbers and letters: exploring an autistic savant's unpracticed ability.
Full Abstract
This paper describes an individual with autism and high-level calendar calculation ability who could perform a set of unpracticed letter/number association tasks. The savant's performance was compared with that of two control participants, one a departmental secretary and the other a professor of mathematics. The facility with which the savant could master the rules governing the relationships between the series of items suggests that he possessed a flexibility of mental processing transcending his ability of calendar calculation. Furthermore, he could recalibrate previous knowledge to solve new hitherto unpracticed tasks. When presented with novel problems, the savant, unlike the mathematician, made no initial errors at all on any of the presented tasks, thereby indicating his fast and spontaneous recognition of new rules and of new relationships between items. It is concluded that a cognitive style of 'weak central coherence' as adopted by autistic savants may protect single representations from being retained in the form of stable enduring wholes, and that such a segmentation strategy may allow for the transformation, reorganization and reconstruction of the relationship between single items of information.
Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills
Author information
Author/s: Pring, Linda (L); Hermelin, Beate (B);
Affiliation: Psychology Department, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. l.pring(-atsign-)gold.ac.uk
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Case Reports; Journal Article
Journal: Neurocase : case studies in neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, and behavioural neurology (Neurocase), published in England. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2002-; vol 8 (issue 4) : pp 330-7
Dates: Created 2002/09/10; Completed 2002/10/29; Revised 2004/11/17;
PMID: 12221146, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):
Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.
This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.
MeSH headings (categories)
This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.
|
Related articles
This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.
See a large map of 100+ related articles.