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- Title
The Hyper-Modular Associative Mind: A Computational Analysis of Associative Responses of Persons with Asperger Syndrome.
- Authors
Kenett, Yoed N.; Gold, Rinat; Faust, Miriam
- Abstract
Rigidity of thought is considered a main characteristic of persons with Asperger syndrome (AS). This rigidity may explain the poor comprehension of unusual semantic relations, frequently exhibited by persons with AS. Research indicates that such deficiency is related to altered mental lexicon organization, but has never been directly examined. The present study used computational network science tools to compare the mental lexicon structure of persons with AS and matched controls. Persons with AS and matched controls generated free associations, and network tools were used to extract and compare the mental lexicon structure of the two groups. The analysis revealed that persons with AS exhibit a hyper-modular semantic organization: their mental lexicon is more compartmentalized compared to matched controls. We argue that this hyper-modularity may be related to the rigidity of thought which characterizes persons with AS and discuss the clinical and more general cognitive implications of our findings.
- Subjects
ISRAEL; ANALYSIS of variance; ASPERGER'S syndrome; COGNITION; STATISTICAL correlation; INTELLECT; LANGUAGE acquisition; MATHEMATICAL models; RESEARCH methodology; MEMORY; PROBABILITY theory; PSYCHOLINGUISTICS; RESEARCH funding; SCALE analysis (Psychology); SEMANTICS; STATISTICAL hypothesis testing; T-test (Statistics); QUALITATIVE research; THEORY; QUANTITATIVE research; PHONOLOGICAL awareness; PROMPTS (Psychology); CASE-control method; STATISTICAL models; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; SYMPTOMS
- Publication
Language & Speech, 2016, Vol 59, Issue 3, p297
- ISSN
0023-8309
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/0023830915589397