Why do we have difficulty with abstraction?

Post Reply New Topic

And if we don't have deficits then what's the latest research that shows that we aren't concrete thinkers?

I thought abstraction was our main thing.

The research is not clear on this issue, and whether or not autistic people are shown to have lesser "abstraction" abilities, whatever these are, depends on the experiments used for specific studies. Much of the blahblah on this issue comes from Frith's Weak Central Coherence Theory. Some studies testing WCC show that autistic people have a bias towards local over global processing (or that NTs have a bias towards global over local processing. Some show that autistics and NTs both have global processing bias on certain tasks. Some show that autistics and NTs process globally equally well, but autistics have local processing advantage. Some show that autistics process global and local information at the same time, while NTs process global at the expense of local. Some show that autistics process local at the expense of global, as in filling in statements like "The sea is made of salt and pepper" instead of "The sea of made of salt and water". There was a one recent study testing WCC specifically, by having the two groups blindly touch a shape, then identify the visual shape later. Autistics outperformed NTs on this task, and this was taken as evidence against WCC. In other words, there is no clear answer to this abstraction question. Sorry for the incoherence above, or is it weak central coherence.

Anyway, I tend to look at it like this: It is likely correct that autistics process local details before global picture, but likely incorrect that autistics cannot assemble the local into the global at all. It might just take a little longer than NTs, most of whom process global before local and need to focus in to notice the details. In addition, when autistics make abstractions from local to global, they probably have a wider range of abstractions that they can make, and only a few of these overlap with the narrower range of abstractions that NTs have the habit of making, because NTs are likely more synchronized with each other in thinking within a box, such as the social box or the common sense box or the I learned it in school box. Like if someone asks what is the similarity between an apple and a pear, an NT might answer that apples and pears are both fruits, and almost all NTs will probably answer this way. An autistic person, who maybe pictured the words for a moment, might say that they form a palindrome and never explain what she means by that which makes sense to her and would make sense to others if she explained it, but she might not do it, and she might be regarded as intellectually deficient in failing to generalize apples and pears into fruits.

Many Aspies I know have awesome abstract reasoning, etc... Eg. in math and physics

Thank you for your post. It was clear , concise and full of information.

Since autistic people take in lots of details at once, it may be inherently harder or less likely to combine these details in a certain way. Like leaves. If NTs see leaves, they think leaves and might classify all the same shapes of leaves as belonging to the same kind of tree. Autistic people might see all the individual pockmarks on the leaves where insects bit into them, and might classify the same kinds of leaves as being different based on which leaves were eaten by which insect producing the different kinds of pockmarks. These are finer details that NTs might not detect unless they were looking for that information, but autistics are unable to avoid detecting these details, so they may choose the insectoid interpretation, and if not explained very clearly, this may be interpreted by NTs as inability to generalize a bunch of leaves as belonging to the same kind of tree and inability to generalize in general, when in reality, it is just that something different happened to be generalize. At another time, the same person may generalize into the same direction and appear to no problem with generalization.

A real-life eggsample of this generalizing that might affect daily functioning is in eating food. When I see a bunch of food on the dinner table, I might not recognize as food to be eaten, and I might not eat any of it until someone tells me to eat it. The reason is that I see a lot of detail on the food itself, like all the little dents in some squash or burnt crisps on some meat. And my mind is very preoccupied with this visual inspection of physical items, such that it might not think that these are all food that I should eat. It might take five or ten minutes for me to think of this on my own. Especially if the food is novel or unusual, and I have rarely seen it before. So my preoccupation with visual detail might have a negative effect on my functioning in terms of eating food, but positive effect on my functioning in terms of drawing pictures of the same food. The negative effects are much more noticeable than the positive effects, since they impact very basic things like eating and taking care of oneself.

Last edited by btbnnyr on 10 Mar 2012, 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't usually notice little details. I just see a pile of leaves as a pile of leaves, colours all merging into a brown colour, even if there are yellow leaves, etc.

Different paths from local to global, hence the varying results. Yeah. I keep referring to this paper - http://autismcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... space.html - because I think it's a brilliant example of our search patterns, and how they get misunderstood if you're pre-laden with assumptions.

Last edited by fraac on 10 Mar 2012, 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You and your latest research can go to hell for all I care. I'm not going to let anyone tell me how I think.

btbnnyr could you PM me your home address please? I want your cat.

Alas, my cat is not my cat, but a cat whom I found on I Can Has Cheezburger, where I clicked through all 30,000 pages of pictures of cats and determined that this cat was the qutest of them all.

I can tell you why I do.

I was also described as black and white as a kid.
f
Funny thing is though, I can actually see the gray area better than most people.

What happens is that I think of so many different possibilities and start to consider so many different details when I receive a vague description or vague directions for something that I become really stressed out.

I'll have 10 questions nobody else, most of which could be answered by "er...duh" but I have to ask all of them.

which is why I like clear-cut, concise things.

Last edited by EXPECIALLY on 10 Mar 2012, 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I love your cat's expression.

When I read research papers on this topic, I notice a lot of problems in the way that NT researchers design and interpret experiments.

One thing was that their own perceptions are not fine-grained enough. For eggsample, there are these hierarchical figures that are big letters made of small letters, and whether you see the big letter or small letter first depends on your global vs. local processing. In a paper, I saw one picture that was an big 8 made of small A's, and the A's were white block letters on black background. So what I saw was neither the big 8 or the small A's. Instead, I saw the black squares in the middle of the A's, where the triangle is in the font in this post. So my perception was further disembedded even from what the researchers considered to be the local level. There is a more local level below that A's. So if I were to press a button for 8 and another for A, then I would be very slow to press any button, because I saw the little black squares first, and I am wondering where is the button for the little black squares. So the interpretations made of my reaction time scores might be very different from the perception, like I would be measured as extremely slow for both local and global processing instead of very fast for more local processing than the researchers had considered.

I think Mottron referred to NT cognitive style as "theory-driven" and autistic style as "stimulus-driven". I like to call it "data-driven", different word but same idea.

Well damn. Guess I'll put away my ski mask and catnapping tools.

Are you referring to the latest research by Michelle Dawson, the autistic researcher, that indicated Autistic Adults, Children, and Aspergers Adults, did signifcantly better on the Progressive Raven Matrices test that tests for fluid intelligence/abstract reasoning, through non-verbal means.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025372

That research and similiar research varies significantly with the different groups tested.

In Weschler IQ tests individuals with Autism Disorder were measured on average as having lower verbal IQ than performance IQ scores; and individuals with Aspergers on average were measured as having lower performance IQ and stronger verbal IQ. The disparity among the scores was much greater in Aspergers.

The Adult individuals with Autism Disorder, whom scored on average with lower verbal performance IQ, did extremely well with the Raven Matrices tests, actually doing slightly better than control groups without an Autism Disorder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatic_language_impairment#Related_disorders

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonverbal_learning_disorder

Symptoms of Pragmatic language impairment are associated with Autism and Aspergers. And, many individuals with Aspergers are reported as having most of the symptoms to meet the requirment for non-verbal learning disorder (NLD) although they are not normally diagnosed with both disorders.

It's interesting that Dawson's research on intelligence in individuals with Aspergers reflects the strengths in verbal IQ relative to performance IQ, that is characteristic of Non-verbal learning disorder.

Other researchers have found the same pattern as well. Although the opposite pattern, and no discernable difference in Verbal/performance IQ is recognized in some cases of Aspergers, as well.


Individuals with semantic pragmatic impairment often have trouble with abstract language such as metaphor, idioms, and sarcasm, and are less likely to use these figurative expressions of language; they tend to express themselves in written and verbal communication in a concrete/literal manner.


Problems with abstract language is a commonly associated issue seen in Aspergers.

Literal/concrete verbal reasoning/thinking is a clinical feature of aspergers. But, individuals with Aspergers per Dawson's research, on average, still score higher on overall verbal Intelligence measures, in traditional IQ tests, as opposed to performance IQ measures.

Dawson's results showed a strength in Raven's matrices test for fluid intelligence as opposed to performance IQ in Children with Aspergers, but their verbal IQ was still higher than that for the Raven matrices test for non-verbal abstract reasoning.

Individuals with non-verbal learning disorder often have problems with spatial skills arithmetic and mathematics. Some individuals with Aspergers don't do well in arithmetic, for other reasons such as a co-morbid diagnoses of dyscalculia.

Interestingly though, there is research that suggests that for some, with dyscalculia, their actual abstract reasoning for mathematics may not be impacted by this, and some may even be gifted in the area of mathematical reasoning.

http://www.autism-help.org/comorbid-dyscalculia-autism.htm


Although, there are no steadfast rules that apply to everyone; on average it appears that individuals with Aspergers, tend to be concrete verbal thinkers and communicators, with varying degrees of problems with abstract language, per the clinical features of asperger.

And at the same time, on average, it appears that there are relative strengths in non-verbal abstract reasoning measured through non-verbal IQ tests, like the Raven Matrices test.

Overall strength in fluid intelligence is measured as much more significant in autism disorder, where both verbal IQ and Performance IQ is relatively lower.

Dawson's research is new; additional studies are needed to replicate the findings.

An interesting point about non-verbal learning disorder, is that visual-spatial problems, and difficulties with mathematics are common. In Pragmatic Language Impairment, strengths in mathematics and computers skills are often seen.

Some people with Aspergers describe good skills in mathematics, some describe problems; some have outstanding visual-spatial skills and some don't, but there is no clinical feature associated with Aspergers that suggests strengths in either, just average intelligence and above.

There is overlap in the clinical features of Aspergers, non-verbal learning disorder, and pragmatic language impairment.

But, there are distinct differences in the disorders, that explain in part how varied and diverse the mix of all these factors can combine to produce the unique expression of intelligence associated with whatever diagnosis is determined.


The problem with Dawson's research on Autistic Intelligence, is that she dismisses traditional IQ tests that measure verbal intelligence and other areas of intellligence as accurate in measuring intelligence in autism.

Tests for fluid intelligence do not test for all areas of intelligence. They can't predict or explain why someone would not be able to understand figurative language.

The excellent memory and vocabularly skills of some with aspergers can overshadow any difficulties in understanding the abstract language of metaphors in traditional IQ tests, however they are still identified with those tests.

Nor, is the Raven Matrice test a good indicator of specific visual-spatial skills like cognitively moving three dimensional objects around in one's mind.

All of these cognitive skills are relative to what one might do in life, whether it is attempting to pursue a career in Marketing, or Auto mechanics. Poor understanding of figurative language would not bode well for Marketing nor would difficulties in visual-spatial skills in auto mechanics.

Cognitive/Intelligence Strengths vary among all autistic individuals. There are no steadfast predictors in any of the disorders that apply to everyone. Complex intelligence testing is a requirement to determine potential strengths and weaknesses.