Thinking in pictures in everyday life situations among autistic adults.
cross_sectional · Level IV
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34293061.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0255039 and PMC identifier 8297849.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Autistic individuals are often described as thinking in pictures. The aim of this study was to investigate the phenomenological characteristics of mental representations and inner experiences of autistic individuals. A total of 39 autistic adults and 80 control adults answered an online questionnaire. Autistic participants reported a more frequent use of visual mental representations than controls for different types of everyday situations. Moreover, autistic individuals defined their visual mental representations as more detailed than control participants. Furthermore, when describing their inner experiences, autistic participants used perceptive visual themes whereas control participants relied more on the description of events and memories. Our results support the hypothesis that some autistic individuals indeed "think in pictures". We discuss the impact of such a visual way of thinking in daily life.
Medical subject headings
- Autistic Disorder
- Thinking
- Visual Perception