It is well known people on the spectrum experience difficulties in orientation in space. For general explanations of this, disturbances in proprioception and the vestibular system are usually mentioned.
Now that more is known about the way spatial orientation works in the brain (place cells, a sort of compass plus the discovery of a 'grid' for which the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser), one wonders if (additional) explanations can be found there.
One fool can ask more questions than a hundred savants can answer, but stil:
How does overconnectivity in the brain affect these different navigational mechanisms? And more specifically:
What disturbances in bottom-up sensory processing do affect these mechanisms?
To what extent are (top-down) templates in the brain affected by problems in central coherence?
So generally: is anyone applying knowledge about spatial orientation to such problems as experienced by people on the autism spectrum?
Dear Flip,
maybe this can help you:
1. A.D. Smith: Spatial navigation in autism spectrum disorders: a critical review. Front Psychol. 2015;6:31.
2. S.E. Lind, D.M. Bowler & J. Raber: Spatial navigation, episodic memory, episodic future thinking, and theory of mind in children with autism spectrum disorder: evidence for impairments in mental simulation? Front Psychol. 2014;5:1411.
Best,
Angelique
Let me add some more papers to professional advices of Dr Ombergen.
A very interesting question - and one that deserves research. I'll try and look up those papers - but my money is on overemphasis on top-down attentional systems. Some colleagues and I have a paper in review on the subject right now... let's see if it gets the thumbs up.
I am delighted by all three responses. This may be the beginning of a small library on the subject!
And of course I'm impatiently awaiting your paper, Jan, which no doubt will elucidate what you mean by "overemphasis" (by whom? the brain system or the observer?)
This could be explained by perceptual, motor, and cognitive impairment in different ASD cases
My findings come from schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, so I don't know how well they apply to autism - but the basic idea is simple: In these conditions there's a great emphasis on top-down attention (deliberate, focused attention) and sometimes a near complete loss of bottom-up attention(BUA) (noticing things that you aren't thinking about or concerned by). Paranoia is partially explained by this: people 'see' what they expect to see, and they fail to notice the 'good stuff,' which is unexpected.
Another symptom of this is described beautifully by Chadwick (1992) "as years of tunnel focus'. Other first-person accounts of schizophrenia also often describe this phenomena.
I have many more examples, but I hope you get the picture. In case you don't, I enclose a diagram I made for the paper I mentioned. It describes top-down, bottom-up and hallucinatory perceptual conditions. (Semantic bottom-up attention is used for 'reality checking').
I wouldn't expect autistics to have the same symptomatology, because in my working hypothesis it's the bodily - ie. emotional and somatic system that is challenged rather than the 'heady' semantic one. But disorientation, failure to notice tiredness, hunger or pain would fit well, unless these are the 'objects of focus' in which case the opposite would be true - an intense awareness of these somatic concerns.
Chadwick, PK. (1992). Borderline; A Psychological Study of Paranoia and Delusional Thinking. London, New York, Canada: Routledge.
As far as autism is concerned one of the most salient traits is lack of central coherence, which is the exact opposite of what you're saying. (And frankly I doubt if this is true where schizophrenia is concerned.)
As I said- I don't know how well these apply to autism, so I won't go far to defend it until I've given the concept more thought. But don't imagine that I believe that schizophrenics have any great central coherence either - in fact, I suggest the opposite. What coherence schizophrenics have prior to the prodrome can be subject to atrophy and distortion very quickly due to the failure of the BUA feedback loop. Similarly my guess is that the somatogenic life-space of autistic people is likely subject to distortion and quick atrophy.
Recent research at Kings College London suggests that premature birth alters the way the brain is hard wired possibly explaining autism. The study is published in PNAS and describes how MRI scans looked at the connections of the Brian's in 66 babies, 47 born before 33 weeks and 19 at term. they investigated the brain connections between the thalamus and cortex . Those born prematurely appeared to have less connectivity between these areas.
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