The New Map Of The Brain. Trying to map the brain has always been cartography for fools. Most of the other parts of the body reveal their workings with little more than a glance. The heart is self-evidently a pump; the lungs are clearly bellows. But the brain, which does more than any organ, reveals least of all. The 3-lb. lump of wrinkled tissue--with no moving parts, no joints or valves--not only serves as the motherboard for all the body's other systems but also is the seat of your mind, your thoughts, your sense that you exist at all. The struggle of the mind to fathom the brain it inhabits is the most circular kind of search--the cognitive equivalent of M.C. Modern scientists have done a far better job of things, dividing the brain into multiple, discrete regions with satisfyingly technical names--hypothalamus, caudate nucleus, neocortex--and mapping particular functions to particular sites.
Slowly, that is changing. Autism and "Patterning": Magical Thinking at Work. Several days ago I commented on some "alternative" treatments for autism that may be attractive to concerned parents but have not been supported by systematic research evidence. Looking at a list of these treatments prepared by Tristram Smith ("Empirically supported and unsupported treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorders", Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, 2008, Vol.6(10, pp. 3-20), I was concerned to see a reference to "patterning". I suppose I hoped it had gone away. "Patterning" has been around for a long time-- long enough to have had the American Academy of Pediatrics twice release policy statements rejecting the practice. Basically, "patterning" involves practices such as making older children use movements like crawling that are characteristic of earlier development, or, for children who are very seriously handicapped, having adults move the passive child's head and limbs through patterns that resemble early reflex movements.
Ellis' Handbook of mental deficiency ... - William E. MacLean. Can a magician trick people with autism? Are people with autism susceptible to magical illusions? There are a number of reasons to suspect that they might not be. Firstly, magicians rely on misdirection. They'll use eye gaze and gesture to make sure the audience is looking one way, while they're secretly switching the cards or sneaking an elephant into a hat (or whatever it is they do). People with autism, it's argued, are less sensitive to these kinds of social cues, so perhaps they're not as easily misdirected. Second, as mentioned in a previous post, there are a number of studies suggesting that people with autism are less susceptible to visual illusions. They see what's there in front of them rather than what they're supposed to see. Gustav Kuhn and colleagues set off to test this prediction by getting participants to watch a short video clip of the vanishing ball illusion.
Surprisingly, Kuhn et al. found that adults with autism were, if anything, more susceptible to the illusion than non-autistic adults. Reference: News. Professor Sue Leekham, School of Psychology, Cardiff University. Full List of Publications Iao, L. and Leekam, S. R. (2014). Non-specificity and theory of mind: New evidence from a non-verbal false-sign task and children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 122, 1-20. (10.1016/j.jecp.2013.11.017) Lidstone, J., Uljarevic, M., Kanaris, H., Mullis, J., Fasoli, L. and Leekam, S. Lidstone, J., Uljarevic, M., Sullivan, J., Rodgers, J., McConachie, H., Freeston, M., Le Couteur, A., Prior, M. and Leekam, S. Fletcher-Watson, S., Leekam, S. Kent, R. Kourkoulou, A., Kuhn, G., Findlay, J. Leekam, S. Meins, E., Fernyhough, C., Arnott, B., Leekam, S. Fletcher-Watson, S., Leekam, S. Kourkoulou, A., Leekam, S.
Price, M., White, L. and Leekam, S. Iao, L., Leekam, S. Kuhn, G., Tewson, L., Morpurgo, L., Freebody, S. Leekam, S. Meins, E., Fernyhough, C., Arnott, B., Vittorini, L., Turner, M., Leekam, S. Meins, E., Fernyhough, C., Arnott, B., Turner, M. and Leekam, S. Arnott, B., McConachie, H., Meins, E., Fernyhough, C., Couteur, A. Magic Tricks Reveal Surprising Results About Autism. News Magicians rely on misdirection—drawing attention to one place while they’re carrying out their tricky business somewhere else. It seems like people with autism should be less susceptible to such social manipulation. But a new study in the U.K. finds that people with autism spectrum disorder are actually more likely to be taken in by the vanishing ball trick, where a magician pretends to throw a ball in the air but actually hides it in his hand. In the vanishing-ball illusion, a magician throws a ball in the air a few times. On the last throw, he merely pretends to throw it, making a tossing motion and looking upwards while the ball remains concealed in his hand.
But observers claim to “see” the ball leaving the hand. For this experiment, 15 teenagers and young adults with autism spectrum disorder and 16 without autism watched a video of a magician performing the vanishing-ball illusion. But the exact opposite happened. Why did/do you want to go into the Child Psychology Field.