Related Experiment Videos
Numbers and letters: exploring an autistic savant's unpracticed ability
1Psychology Department, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. l.pring@gold.ac.uk
Neurocase
|September 11, 2002
Summary
Autistic savants demonstrate exceptional cognitive flexibility, rapidly mastering new tasks by segmenting information. This weak central coherence allows for flexible mental processing beyond specific skills like calendar calculation.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neurodevelopmental Disorders
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
Background:
- This study investigates cognitive processing in an autistic savant with exceptional calendar calculation skills.
- The research compares the savant's performance on novel tasks to that of control participants.
Observation:
- The autistic savant demonstrated rapid mastery of unpracticed letter/number association tasks.
- Unlike a mathematician control, the savant made no initial errors on novel problems, indicating spontaneous rule recognition.
Findings:
- The savant exhibited superior mental processing flexibility, transcending specific abilities.
- The ability to recalibrate existing knowledge facilitated solving new, unpracticed problems.
- The savant's performance suggests a cognitive style characterized by 'weak central coherence'.
Implications:
- Weak central coherence in autistic savants may facilitate flexible information processing.
- Segmentation strategies could enable the transformation and reconstruction of relationships between data.
- Understanding these cognitive styles offers insights into diverse learning and problem-solving mechanisms in autism.