关于自闭症记忆问题的一项研究

binfeng2000

试验显示出自闭症患者可能是在记忆或回忆过程中,将注意力不知不觉地集中在语言或词字的某些方面(如语音),而没能集中在语言的语义方面,这和自闭症心理研究的一个模式:"中心凝聚力缺陷( Weak Central Coherence model )的假使相吻合.

A study of memory functioning in individuals with autism.
Authors:
Mottron, L., Morasse, K. & Belleville, S.         Year:
2001
Source:
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 253-260.

Summary:
High functioning people with ASD and typical people were administered a series of memory tasks. People with ASD remembered words equally well when given semantic (meaning bases) memory hints and when given phonetic (sound based) hints. Typical individuals, however, performed significantly better when they were given semantic hints than when given phonetic hints.
Participants:
14 high-functioning individuals ranging in age from 11 to 40 who met ADI-R criteria for autism and were diagnosed with either Autism or Asperger's Syndrome and 14 typical individuals ranging in age from 9 to 37.
Methods:
Learning the words: Participants were asked to memorize words that appeared on a screen. All 15 words were presented on the screen at once in a matrix. There were 3 different conditions. In all conditions, the participants were asked to read the word out loud when they found it. In the condition with no cues, the experimenter read the word out loud and asked the participant to find it in the matrix. (e.g., "Show me the word broccoli."). In the semantic condition, the experimenter asked the participant to find a word that belonged to a particular category. (e.g., "Show me the name of the vegetable."). In the phonetic condition, the experimenter asked the participant to find a word that began with the sound of the first syllable. (e.g. "Show me the word starting with NA."). Remembering the words: Free recall: First the participants were asked to recall in any order all of the words from the list. Cued Recall: In the semantic and phonetic conditions, if the participant could not freely recall a word a semantic or phonetic hint was given. (e.g. "One of the words of the list was a vegetable; do you remember what it was?").
Results:
When asked to freely recall the words, no differences were found between autistic and neuro-typical participants. When asked to freely recall the words, both groups remembered the words that had been encoded semantically better than they remembered words that had had no particular coding. There was no significant difference in any of the groups in ability to freely recall words that had had been phonetically encoded and words that had received no special encoding. After being given the hints, typical people remembered words that were encoded phonetically slightly worse than people with ASD and remembered words encoded semantically slightly better. Typical people remembered words that were semantically encoded significantly better than they remembered words that were phonetically encoded. This was not the case for participants with ASDs. An association was found in the ASD group between the social and communication domain scores on the ADI-R (A parent interview designed to help diagnose autism) and ability to remember words once a semantic hint had been given. No correlations were found between words with phonetic hints or words without hints and ADI-R scores. The number of falsely remembered words was similar in the two groups.
Conclusion:
The results of this study demonstrate that the deficits of autistic people do not resemble those of people who have general memory deficits. The deficits of autistic people are much more particular as demonstrated by their ability and to perform just as well as the typical group when freely recalling words. However, unlike the typical participants, the semantic memory hints did not help their memory any more than the phonetic ones. These results can not be explained by a lack of organization in memory techniques among autistic people or a semantic deficit in autistic people. If this was the case, the autistic people would not have performed similarly to the typical people in free recall and would not have shown a preference for the words that were learned semantically. Instead, it is possibile that the autistic people have an enhanced ability to process phonetic information and this leaves less of the brain available to process semantic information. This is in accord with the Weak Central Coherence model of autism which suggests that autistic people tend to focus on parts (sounds of a word) rather than wholes (the meaning of the entire word).
Critical Review:
The experimental design and idea behind this study is useful. However, because the sample sizes are small and the results rather subtle, a larger study would be necessary to verify the results.

快乐的深深

这个研究的结果与我观察深深的表现比较吻合。深深的语音记忆能力明显要强于普通人,有时候我感觉他就是喜欢里面的发音，而其实根本不在乎是什么意思。大概两岁多不到三岁时，曾经让他听过法国电影《蝴蝶》的主题曲，因为我比较喜欢，而且我听得次数肯定比他多很多次，但几天后他就在不经意间能把其中的某些歌词唱出来（法语），而我是一句也唱不出来。包括很小时他看完迪斯尼神奇英语能背大段的英文，看《鼹鼠和裤子〉里面大段的捷克语旁白他也学得惟妙惟肖。最近给他买了一个光碟《小小爱因斯坦》，没想到里面大部分内容没有汉语配音，而是德语配音，如果关了声音只放画面，深深对其中大部分的音乐和声音配得跟原片差不多。有人认为有的孩子是视觉敏感或听觉敏感，深深似乎两方面都比较敏感，但总觉得这中间还缺了什么。