central coherence

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The Weak Coherence Account: Detail-focused Cognitive Stylein Autism Spectrum Disorders

Francesca Happe1,3 and Uta Frith2

Weak central coherence refers to the detail-focused processing style proposed to

characterise autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The original suggestion of a core deficit in

central processing resulting in failure to extract global form/meaning, has been challenged inthree ways. First, it may represent an outcome of superiority in local processing. Second, it

may be a processing bias, rather than deficit. Third, weak coherence may occur alongside,

rather than explain, deficits in social cognition. A review of over 50 empirical studies of

coherence suggests robust findings of local bias in ASD, with mixed findings regarding weak

global processing. Local bias appears not to be a mere side-effect of executive dysfunction, and

may be independent of theory of mind deficits. Possible computational and neural models are

discussed.

KEY WORDS: Autism spectrum disorders; central coherence; cognitive style; individual differences;

localglobal processing.

Some individuals with autism spectrum disorders

(ASD) can name the pitch of the pop as a cork

comes out of a bottle, or identify dozens of brands of

vacuum cleaner from their sound alone. Others can

spot a misaligned book in a bookcase in seconds, or

mimic foreign speech distinctions not usually notice-

able to non-native speakers. These exceptional per-

ceptual abilities may be maladaptive in so far as they

may lead to distress at small changes in the environ-

ment. Kanners original description of autism high-

lighted this attention to detail and inability to

experience wholes without full attention to theconstituent parts as one factor in the characteristic

insistence on sameness: A situation, a performance, a

sentence is not regarded as complete if it is not made

up of exactly the same elements that were present at

the time the child was first confronted with it. If the

slightest ingredient is altered or removed, the total

situation is no longer the same and therefore is not

accepted as such... (Kanner, 1943, p. 246). Indeed, a

persistent preoccupation with parts of objects is one

of the diagnostic criteria for autistic disorder in

current practice (DSM-IV, APA, 1994).

Understanding perceptual processes in ASD

may involve explaining both disordered and superiorprocessing. One cognitive theory that has specifically

sought to address both deficits and assets in ASD is

the weak coherence account. Frith (1989) drew

attention to the tendency for typically developing

children and adults to process incoming information

for meaning and gestalt (global) form, often at the

expense of attention to or memory for details and

surface structure. This tendency, referred to by

Bartlett (1932) as drive for meaning, was termed

1 Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute

of Psychiatry, Kings College London, London, UK.2 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College, London,

UK.3 Correspondence should be addressed to: Social, Genetic and

Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings

College London, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, P.O. Box

P080, SE5 8AF, London, UK. e-mail: [email protected]

50162-3257/06/0100-0005/0 2006 Springer ScienceBusiness Media, Inc.

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol. 36, No. 1, January 2006 ( 2006)

DOI 10.1007/s10803-005-0039-0

Published Online: February 1, 2006


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central coherence by Frith. Individuals with ASD

were hypothesised to show weak central coherence;

a processing bias for featural and local information,

and relative failure to extract gist or see the big

picture in everyday life. This processing bias was

evident in early work on verbal memory, showingrelatively little benefit from meaning (Hermelin &

OConnor, 1967), and exact rather than corrected

repetition (Aurnhammer-Frith, 1969). In early work

using visuo-spatial tasks, ASD groups showed supe-

riority at disembedding (Shah & Frith, 1983), greater

reliance on adjacent elements in pattern extraction

(Frith, 1970), and a reduced inversion effect in face

processing (Langdell, 1978).

Interest in the coherence account of ASD has

grown rapidly since the early work by Frith (1989)

and Happe (1999; Frith & Happe , 1994), with more

than 60 publications relating to this topic publishedsince 1999, a fourfold increase on the previous 10-

year period. In that time, and in response to empirical

findings, the coherence account has been modified

from Friths original conception in three important

ways. First, the original suggestion of a core deficit in

central processing, manifest in failure to extract

global form and meaning, has changed from a

primary problem to a more secondary out-

comewith greater emphasis on possible superiority

in local or detail-focused processing. Second, the idea

of a core deficit has given way to the suggestion of a

processing bias or cognitive style, which can be

overcome in tasks with explicit demands for global

processing. Last, the explanatory remit of the account

has changed, with a recognition that weak coherence

may be one aspect of cognition in ASD alongside,

rather than causing/explaining, deficits in social

cognition (e.g. theory of mind; Frith, 1989, revised

2003).

Along with increased research interest, the

notion of weak coherence or detail-focused process-

ing style, has been received with enthusiasm and

immediate recognition by the ASD community

(affected individuals and their families). Autobio-

graphical accounts of autism often describe frag-mented perception (Gerland, 1997). Weak coherence

is seen as addressing aspects of ASD that some other

accounts have neglected, such as areas of talent,

super-acute perception, and lack of generalisation.

For example, perceptual abnormalities such as hyper-

sensitivity, clinically/anecdotally reported but little

studied in research to date, may relate to context-free

processing as expectations and context-based inter-

pretation are known to modulate experience of

sensory stimuli in neurotypicals (people without

ASD). Just as there is a higher than usual occurrence

of perfect pitch in ASD (Miller, 1999), so absolute,

rather than relative, coding of other sensory stimuli

may underlie some aspects of perceptual discomfort

or fascination. Problems with generalisation of skillswould follow from weak coherence, if experiences are

coded in terms of details. If people with ASD

remember each exemplar rather than extracting

prototypes (Klinger & Dawson, 2001), this would

render recognition of situations that are alike

problematic: only if a situation shares the key

detail(s) with a previous experience, will generalisa-

tion of skills occur (Plaisted, 2001; Rincover &

Koegel, 1975).

OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH

Table I summarises published experimental

group studies in which weak coherence in ASD is

addressed, and those directly relevant studies

described below. A number of studies, both within

and beyond those explicitly addressing coherence, are

directly relevant to perceptual processing in ASD.

Relevant to perception in the auditory modality, are

demonstrations of stable memory for exact pitches

(Bonnel et al., 2003; Heaton, Hermelin, & Pring,

1998), enhanced local processing (with intact global

processing) of musical stimuli (Heaton, 2003;

Mottron, Peretz, & Menard, 2000), reduced interfer-

ence from melodic structure (combining pitch and

timing effects) in music processing (Foxton et al.,

2003), and a reduced McGurk effect (i.e. less

influence from visual to auditory speech perception;

DeGelder, Vroomen, & Van der Heide, 1991).

Relevant to perception in the visual modality,

individuals with ASD show raised thresholds for

perceiving coherent motion (Bertone, Mottron,

Jelenic, & Faubert, 2003; Milne et al., 2002; Spencer

et al., 2000), and reduced susceptibility to visually

induced motion (Gepner, Mestre, Masson, & Scho-

nen, 1995; Gepner & Mestre, 2002). Superior visualsearch (Plaisted, ORiordan, & Baron-Cohen, 1998a;

ORiordan, Plaisted, Driver, & Baron-Cohen, 2001),

and superior discrimination learning of highly

confusable patterns (Plaisted, ORiordan, & Baron-

Cohen, 1998b), have also been reported. Active

processes of visual grouping may be affected, shown

in reduced gestalt grouping (Brosnan, Scott, Fox, &

Pye, 2004), reduced susceptibility to visual illusions

(Happe , 1996; but see, Ropar & Mitchell, 1999,

6 Happe and Frith


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TableI.PublishedGroupStudies

AssessingCentralCoherenceinAutismSp

ectrumDisorders

Reference

Participants(groupmeans)

Tasks

Mainfindings

Visuo-spatial

EFT

ShahandFrith(1983)

20A

SDCA13,MANV9.6

CE

FT

ASDgroupaccuracy>

MH,TD

20TDMA-matched

Qualitativeevidenceofmoreimmediatesuccess

20M

HCAandMAmatch

BrianandBryson(1996)

16A

SDCA20,Ravensraw39,

Disembedding:adapted(meaningful)CEFT

item

splusabstractandfragmenteditems

Nogroupdifferencesofgroup

conditioninteractions

34%le,PPVTstscore77,raw120

Recognition:asaboveplusdistractoritems

RTtodisembeddedMeaningful>Abstract>Fragmented

inallgroups

15TDCA12,Ravensscore39,55%ile

RecognitionaccuracyMeaningful>Abstract=

Fragmented(atchance)inallgroups

16TDCA12,PPVTstscore103,

rawscore119

JolliffeandBaron-Cohen

(1997)

17H

FACA31,FIQ105

EF

T

HFAandAspergergroupsfasterthanTDonEFT.

17A

SCA28,FIQ107

Mo

difiedReydrawingtask

Nogroupdifferencesondrawingtask

17TDCAandFIQmatched

RoparandMitchell(2001)19autismCA14,VMA7

EF

T,Blockdesign

Autism>

MH,TDonEFTandBlockDesign(AS=TD

11-year-oldgroup)

11A

SCA12,VMA10

20M

HCA13,VMA7

37TDCA8&11

Jarroldetal.(2000)

17A

SDCA10,VMA8

CE

FT,DASBD(+Belieftasks)

InASDandTDchildren,EFTandBDnegativelycorre-

latedwithToMscoresonceVMAandC

Apartialledout

24TDCA5

Pre

schoolEFT,DASBD(+Belieftasks)

EFTnegativelycorrelatedwithEyesTestscore

60T

AdultsCA1825

EF

TandEyesTask

Morganetal.(2003)

21A

SDCA4,VMA33months,

Leite

r(NVIQ)95

Pre

schoolEFT

ASDfasterthancontrolsonEFT(accuracyns)

21TD/MHCAandnVIQmatched

PatternConstruction(DAS)(+joint

attention,pretendplayratings)

ASD>ControlsonPatternConstruction

Correlationscoherence

jointattention,pretendplayns

BlockDesign

ShahandFrith(1993)

10H

ighIQASDPIQ97

We

chslerBlockDesign

7/10HiIQ(scaledscores1319)and6/10loIQASD(ss

915)BDpersonalpeaksubtest

10LowIQ(meanPerformancesubte

stscorefor85%,

regardlessofToM

performance

Weak Coherence 7


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TableI.Continued

Reference

Participants(groupmeans)

Tasks

Mainfindings

Pring,Hermelin,&Heavey

(1995)

18A

SDCA26,RavensMA12

Blo

ckdesigntask;meaningfulscenes,and

We

chsler-likedesigns

ArtisticallytalentedTDfasterthanASD

onmeaningful

scenes.

18T

DMAmatched

ArtisticallytalentedTDandallASD(regardlessofartistic

talent)fasterthannonartisticTD

Both

groupedbyartisticability

Hie

rarchicalfigures

Ozonoff,Strayer,

McMahon,&Filloux

(1994)

14A

SD,CA12,FIQ100

Na

vonHierarchicalFigurestask;largeletter

com

posedofsmallersameordifferent

lett

er(selectiveattention)

Nogroupdifferences;allgroupsshowedglobaladvantage

andinterference

14T

DCAandIQmatched

14T

ourettesyndromeCAand

IQm

atched

Mottronetal.(1999)

11H

FACA15,RavensIQ110

Na

vonHierarchicalFigures(divided

attention)

HFA,butnotTD,groupshowaglobaladvantage

11T

DCAandIQmatched

Palmermentalsynthesistask

Nogroupdifferencesineffectofgoodnes

sofPalmer

figures

Plaistedetal.(1999)

17A

SDCA10,ravensscore33

Na

vonHierarchicalFiguresinDividedand

Selectiveattentionconditions

Nogroupdifferencesinselectiveattentioncondition

17TD

CAandRavensrawscore

matc

hed

ASDshownoglobaladvantageindivide

dattentioncon-

dition(TDdomakefewererrorsfortargetsatglobalthan

locallevel)

Rinehartetal.(2000)

12H

FACA10,FIQ94

Na

vonHierarchical(numbers)Figures(selec-

tiveattention)

Allgroupsshowedexpectedglobaladvan

tageandinter-

ference

12A

SCA12,FIQ104

HFA,butnotASgroup,showedmorelocalinterference

thanTD

12+

12TDCAandIQmatched

Rinehartetal.(2001)

12H

FACA10,FIQ94

Na

vonHierarchical(numbers)Figures

(dividedattention)

HFARTtogloballeveltargetsslowedw

henprevious

targetatlocallevel,comparedwithTDg

roup(deficit

movingfromlocaltoglobalprocessing)

12A

SCA12,FIQ104

NosuchgroupdifferenceforASgroup

12+

12TDCAandIQmatched

Mottronetal.(2003)

12H

FACA16,IQ105110

Hierarchicalfigures

Nogpdifference(butalsonoglobaladvantageinTD

group)

101

2TDmatchedonCA&IQ

Fra

gmentedletterrecognition

Nogpdifference(butalsonomaineffect

ofcondition)

Silhouetteidentification

Nogpdifference(butalsonomaineffect

ofcondition)

Long-short-rangegrouping

Nogpdifference

Disembedding

ASD>

TD,embeddingeffectsTDgroup

only

VisualIllusion

Happe(1996)

25A

SDCA13,VMA7

Jud

geillusionsin2Dand3Dforms(verbal

responsetoillusionsoncards)

ASDsuccumbtofewerillusionsthanMH

andTD

21T

DCA7

ASDshowlessbenefitfrom3DdisembeddingthandoMH

andTD

26M

HCAandVMAmatched

ASD=MH,TDnumbercorrectfor3Dillusions

8 Happe and Frith


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Adjustpartsofcomputerisedillusions

Participantsinallgroupsstronglysuscep

tibletoillusions

inbothformats,nosignificantgroupdiff

erences

13A

SCA14,VMA14

Verbalresponsetoillusionsoncards

17M

HCA10,VMA6

41TDCA8&11,15adults


Adjustpartsofcomputerisedillusions

Nogroupdifferencesinsusceptibilitytoillusions

11A

SCA12,VMA10

ReyFiguredrawing,BD,EFT,EFT

Reyfiguregavenoevidenceofgroupdifferencesinglobal

approach.Performanceonillusionsnotr

elatedtoperfor-

manceonvisuo-spatialtasks

20M

HCA13,VMA7

37TDCA8&11

Dra

wing

Mottronetal.(1999)

10H

FACA19,PIQ112

Copyingdrawings(realobjects,non-objects,

possibleandimpossiblefigures)

HFAgroupdrawmorelocalfeaturesatstartofcopyand

arelessslowedbyimpossibilityoffigure,

comparedwith

controls

11TDCAandPIQmatched

Boothetal.(2003)

30A

SDCA11,FIQ100

Drawingfromanexample

ASDgroupshowedmoredetail-focuseddrawingstyle

(25%startwithdetail,drawfragments,33%violatecon-

figuration)vs.TDandADHD

31TDCAandFIQmatched

30A

DHDCAandFIQmatched

Mo

tioncoherence

Spenceretal.(2000)

23A

SD(noCAorIQdetails)

Mo

tioncoherencethresholdtask

ASDraisedmotion,butnotform,coherencethresholds

relativestoTD

50V

MAmatched(711)

Formcoherencethresholdtask

19T

adults

Milneetal.(2002)

25A

SDCA12,Ravensrawscore41

Mo

tioncoherencethresholdtask

ASDraisedmotioncoherencethresholdvs.TD

22TDCAandRavensmatched

Bertoneetal.(2003)

12H

FACA12,IQ101

Sen

sitivityforfirst-andsecond-ordermotion

HFA=TDonfirst-order(luminance-defined)motion

12TDCA13

HFAworsethanTDatdetectingsecond-order(texture-

defined)motion

Pellicanoetal.(2005)

20A

SDCA10,Ravensrawscore40

Flickercontrastsensitivity

Nogroupdifference

20TDCAandRavensmatched

Globaldotmotion(GDM)task

ASDhigherthresholdsthanTD

CE

FT

ASDfasterthanTD.InverserelationCE

FTRTxGDM

thresholdsinASDonly

Fac

es(selectedstudies)

Hobson,Ouston,andLee

(1988)

17A

SDCA19,BPVSrawscore65,Ravens

rawscore36

Up

rightfaceidentity/emotionmatching,blank

-

mo

uth/forehead

ASDemotionmatchingdeclinedwithfew

ercues,MHless

soASD>MHmatchinginvertedfaces

17M

HCA19,BPVS66,Ravens22

Inv

ertedfaceidentity/emotionmatching

TeunisseanddeGelder

(2003)

17H

FACA19,VIQ90

Inv

ersioneffecttask

Allgroupsworseatrecognisinginvertedthanuprightfaces

24TDCA910

Compositeeffecttask

Non-alignedcompositesrecognisedfasterthanwholes

(compositeeffect)inTadults,TD(p

central coherence

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