How the Autistic Brain Works, Part 1: Locally Oriented Processing
Some of you might already be familiar with the Enhanced Perceptual Functioning (EPF) model of autism (click on the underlined portion to read the paper), and some of you may not. So for those of you who are new to this model of understanding autistic brains, I’m here to explain it. The EPF model was created in the early 2000s, by a research team including Michelle Dawson, who is autistic. The model is broken down into 8 separate principles, that describe different aspects of the way autistic brains work. Today, I’m going to explain the first principle.
Principle 1: “The Default Setting of Autistic Perception is more Locally Oriented than that of Non-autistics”
What does that mean? Basically, it means that autistic people are much better than non-autistics at accurately perceiving and identifying the parts that make up a whole. However, this ability does not limit us to seeing just the “little picture.” We are able to perceive the whole just as well as non-autistics. A common saying about autistic people is that we “can’t see the forest for the trees.” But according to research, that’s not correct. We see both the trees and the forest, it’s just very hard for us to obscure our vision of the trees and onlysee the forest instead. Before reading further, you need to know the definitions of three key words in this context: local, global, and hierarchical.
Local stimuli: small elements that make up something larger or more complicated.
Global stimuli: larger patterns that are made of a bunch of local stimuli put together.
Hierarchical perception/processing: the way that local and global stimuli are perceived, with local stimuli at the bottom and global stimuli on top. Non-autistic people tend to perceive things from the top down (global to local), whereas autistic people perceive them from the bottom up (local to global).
Three examples of tasks given to autistic people in clinics that demonstrate our advantage in local processing are the Block Design subtest of the Wechsler scales (an intelligence test), the Embedded Figures Task, and being asked to draw impossible figures.
The Block Design subtest is a task with 9 blocks that are red on two sides, white on two sides, and half-white-half-red on two sides. The goal of the task is to arrange the blocks in a manner that replicates a pattern on a sheet of paper next to the blocks. The task is scored based on how long it takes the participant, and how accurate the participant’s designs are. Here are pictures for a better idea of what it looks like:
Autistic people are known for having what’s called a “peak of ability” on the block design subtest. This is because we have an enhanced ability to pick apart the local elements of global stimuli, and arrange them properly. In this example, the local elements are the individual blocks, and the global stimuli are the patterns we’re trying to replicate (in the image above, the “unsegmented” illustrations are the patterns).
The same thing goes for the Embedded Figures Test, which is a task where the person has to select which of a series of figures contains a specific shape that’s embedded in the lines. Here’s an example:
The answer to both a) and b) is the right-hand figure.
Here’s another example, just for fun:
The answer is C.
Finally, here’s a drawing of an impossible figure. These are easier for autistic people to draw because we can focus on the individual lines without getting messed up by the appearance of the figure as a whole:
Here’s what the authors of the Enhanced Perceptual Functioning paper have to say about this:
“When the processing of a global aspect conflicts with a local analysis among typically developing persons (perceptual cohesiveness in [Block Design], impossibility of a figure in [drawing of] figure tasks, visual context in [Embedded Figures Task]), autistics perform at a level superior to their comparison groups. In contrast, when this conflict is diminished, for example by segmentation to diminish the perceptual cohesiveness in [Block Design] or in copying possible vs. impossible figures, autistics are brought back to a level of performance equivalent to that of typical individuals. This indicates that autistics are not obliged to use a global strategy when a global approach to the task is detrimental to performance. For example, autistic persons are better able than typically developing persons to copy impossible figures (Mottron et al., 1999b), and as able to identify that impossible figures are impossible (Brosnan, Scott, Fox, & Pye, 2004). In contrast, typical individuals cannot adjust to the situation of an impossible figure coinciding with a possible drawing.”
To sum up Principle 1, the authors write:
“The default setting of the autistic perceptual system toward local information contrasts with typical hierarchical processing (Robertson & Lamb, 1991) that combines ‘‘global advantage’’, the superior relative speed and accuracy of global target detection, with ‘‘global interference’’, the asymmetric influence of global processing on the detection of the local stimuli.”
This basically means that instead of perceiving things from the top down (like most other people), autistic people perceive things from the bottom up. Our brains are like direct democracies.
I find this incredibly fascinating, especially given how many autistic people I know (including myself) are leftists. One of my main special interests is Democratic Confederalism, which is a political system of community government and direct democracy in both the public and private spheres- it prioritizes the “local elements” and gives them freedom to govern themselves.
Autistic people also tend to act in a very autonomous manner, and not give into peer pressure as easily as others. Greta Thunberg is a great example of an autistic person acting autonomously (as a local element) to spark change from the bottom up.
I wonder how much of all this has to do with the way we perceive our everyday world- and I suspect it’s all very much related.
As anarchists, we think that human beings shouldn’t be defined by the surplus value they bring to capitalism. Work should be the way to produce by necessity and not to create new needs. Work must be organized so everyone can work less, and for means other than profitability.
