ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — Autistics are up to 40 percent faster at problem-solving than non-autistics, according to a new Université de Montréal and Harvard University study published in the journal Human Brain Mapping. As part of the investigation, participants were asked to complete patterns in the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) – test that measures hypothesis-testing, problem-solving and learning skills.

"While both groups performed RSPM test with equal accuracy, the autistic group responded more quickly and appeared to use perceptual regions of the brain to accelerate problem-solving," says lead author Isabelle Soulières, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University who completed the experiment at the Université de Montréal. "Some critics agued that autistics would be unable to complete the RSPM because of its complexity, yet our study shows autistics complete it as efficiently and have a more highly developed perception than non-autistics."

Fifteen autistics and 18 non-autistics were recruited for the study. Participants were 14 to 36 years old and matched according to their preliminary results on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. All subjects underwent magnetic resonance imaging to explore their neural activity during RSPM problem-solving. While autism is a common neurodevelopmental disability characterized by profound differences in information processing and analysis, this study showed that autistics have efficient reasoning abilities that build on their perceptual strengths.

"This study builds on our previous findings and should help educators capitalize on the intellectual abilities of autistics," says senior researcher Laurent Mottron, the new Marcel & Rolande Gosselin Research Chair in Autism Cognitive Neuroscience of the Université de Montréal and psychiatry professor. "The limits of autistics should constantly be pushed and their educational materials should never be simplified."

Adds Dr. Soulières: "The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices are among the most complex tests to provide insight on how a person understands and formulates rules, manages goal hierarchies and performs high-level abstractions. Our wager was that autistics could complete such a test and they surpassed our expectations."

This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Autism Speaks.

Journal reference:

1. Soulieres, Gary E. Enhanced visual processing contributes to matrix reasoning in autism. Human Brain Mapping, 2009; DOI: 10.1002/hbm.20831

Participants were asked to complete patterns in the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) -- a test that measures hypothesis-testing, problem-solving and learning skills. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Montreal)

Related Stories

The Matrix Of Autism (Aug. 5, 2007) — Autistic children are doubly stigmatized. On the one hand, they are often dismissed as "low functioning" or mentally retarded, especially if they have poor speaking skills as many do. But when they ...  > read more

Therapies Appear Helpful In Reducing Risk Of Depression Following Stroke (May 27, 2008) — In the year following a stroke, patients who received the medication escitalopram or participated in a problem-solving therapy group had a lower risk of depression compared to patients who received ...  > read more

Eye Movement Can Affect Problem-solving, Cognition (Sep. 27, 2007) — Directing the eye movements of test subjects allowed researchers to affect the participants' ability to solve a problem, demonstrating that eye movement is not just a function of cognition but can ...  > read more

Computer Model Can Predict Human Behavior And Learning (Nov. 10, 2008) — A new computer model can predict how people will complete a controlled task and how the knowledge needed to complete that task develops over ...  > read more

Search ScienceDaily

Putting Everyday Products to the Test