Indiv Diff WCC

Question 1

Why was weak central coherence developed

Answer 1

As ToM was seen to be incomplete as it could not explain all aspects of ASD

Question 2

What is global processing

Answer 2

The act of processing a visual stimulus holistically
Represents the larger overall image as a whole

Question 3

What is local processing

Answer 3

Individual features that make up this larger whole
Focuses on attention to detail rather than meaning of the whole

Question 4

Weak central coherence

Answer 4

Impaired global processing but enhanced local processing

Question 5

Global vs local

Answer 5

Global is focusing on the ‘gist’ of a conversation from a couple of days ago but not the finer details

Local is remembering one specific phrase of comment from the conversation

Question 6

Central coherence is ……

Answer 6

Given to your ability to derive overall meaning from a mass of details

Question 7

Weak central coherence is having …….

Answer 7

A cognitive preference for local processing over global processing

Question 8

Shah and firth
Tested weak central coherence with 20 young people with ASD, 13 young people with learning difficulties, 17 typically developing young people and 16 typically developing children
All were shown a two dimensional pattern on a card and ps were asked to construct the same pattern using smaller individual blocks.

Answer 8

People with ASD performed better at the task than the other groups
Local processing is advantageous in tasks like this
This shows people with ASD have a weak central coherence.