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Published on: December 7, 2018
Big heads, small details and autism
Sarah White1, Helen O'Reilly, Uta Frith
1Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK. s.white@ucl.ac.uk
Neuropsychologia
|May 12, 2009
Summary
Children with autism and larger head sizes show difficulty switching from local to global processing. This suggests macrocephaly in autism may indicate abnormal brain connectivity and a local processing bias.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Autism is often linked to a detail-focused processing bias.
- Abnormal neural connectivity is a hypothesized mechanism, potentially affecting global generalization.
- Macrocephaly (increased head size) is more common in autism and may relate to neural connectivity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of head size on global-local processing switching in children with autism.
- To determine if macrocephaly is specifically associated with processing difficulties in autism.
Main Methods:
- Comparison of 49 high-functioning children with autism (12 with macrocephaly) and 25 typically developing children.
- Utilized a Local-Global Switching task to assess processing costs during task shifts.
- A second experiment examined macrocephaly in typically developing children.
Main Results:
- Children with autism and macrocephaly exhibited higher processing costs when switching to global processing ('zooming out').
- This difficulty was not observed in typically developing children with macrocephaly, suggesting it relates to physical size.
- Macrocephaly in autism appears linked to impaired global processing shifts.
Conclusions:
- Macrocephaly in autism may serve as a biological marker for abnormal neural connectivity.
- Findings support a link between macrocephaly, abnormal connectivity, and a local processing bias in autism.
- Processing style differences in autism may stem from altered neural connectivity impacting cognitive flexibility.
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