Jolliffe T, Baron-Cohen S
University of Cambridge, Dept. of Experimental Psychology, UK.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1997 Jul;38(5):527-34. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01539.x.
Previous work suggests children with autism show superior performance (in relation to their general mental age) on the Embedded Figures Test (EFT). Frith interprets this as showing that they have "weak central coherence". In Experiment 1, using an adult level version of this task, we aimed to replicate and extend this finding, first, by collecting response time (RT) data; second, by testing adults with autism of normal intelligence; and third, by testing a group of adults with Asperger syndrome, in order to test for differences between autism and Asperger syndrome. Both clinical groups were significantly faster on the EFT. In Experiment 2, we investigated if this difference was due to a preference for local over global processing, using a novel drawing task based on the classical Rey Figure. The clinical groups did not differ significantly on this test, but there was a trend towards such a difference. Alternative explanations for the EFT superiority in autism and Asperger syndrome are considered.
先前的研究表明，患有自闭症的儿童在嵌入图形测验（EFT）中表现出（相对于其一般心理年龄而言）更优异的成绩。弗里斯将此解释为表明他们具有“弱中央连贯性”。在实验1中，我们使用该任务的成人版，旨在复制并扩展这一发现，首先，通过收集反应时间（RT）数据；其次，通过测试智力正常的成年自闭症患者；第三，通过测试一组阿斯伯格综合征成年人，以检验自闭症与阿斯伯格综合征之间的差异。两个临床组在EFT上的速度都明显更快。在实验2中，我们使用基于经典雷氏图形的新颖绘图任务，研究这种差异是否是由于对局部而非整体加工的偏好所致。临床组在该测试中没有显著差异，但有出现这种差异的趋势。文中还考虑了对自闭症和阿斯伯格综合征在EFT中表现优异的其他解释。
