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Mind as a Dynamical System:Implications for Autism

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... Specifically, the WCC would assume difficulties in generalizing social learning across situations, which may be linked to a tendency for feeling socially overwhelmed amongst autistic people (Happé, 1999;Hill, 2004). While the theory has been criticized for failing to specify the level at which integration difficulties may occur (Baron-Cohen, 2008), the idea that autistic people attend more to detail has remained influential (Murray et al., 2005;Lesser and Murray, 2020). The theory of monotropism (Murray et al., 2005) furthers the idea that autistic people have a tendency to attend to detail. ...
... This theory positions autistic people as being able to integrate information into wider contexts, but it does still suggest that autistic people might find it more difficult to process multiple streams of information (Murray, 2020). Therefore, both monotropism and WCC position autistic people as struggling with social breadth, or the ability to model other minds (Happé, 1999;Lesser and Murray, 2020). The theories then suggest that typically developing people would tend to better understand social breadth at the expense of depth (Lesser and Murray, 2020). ...
... Therefore, both monotropism and WCC position autistic people as struggling with social breadth, or the ability to model other minds (Happé, 1999;Lesser and Murray, 2020). The theories then suggest that typically developing people would tend to better understand social breadth at the expense of depth (Lesser and Murray, 2020). ...
Article
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Introduction Recent research has demonstrated how reflections on serious literature can challenge dominant social-deficit views of autism. This method enables autistic readers to explore social realities more slowly and carefully, encouraging detail-focused considerations. Previous research has also shown that autistic and non-autistic readers reflecting on serious literature together are able to achieve mutuality in a way that enables them to overcome the double empathy problem. However, the advantages of reading aloud designs have yet to be explored with autistic and non-autistic readers due to previous concerns amongst autistic people on the issue of being read aloud to. The present study aimed to explore how an adapted shared reading design that compared serious literature and non-fiction would enable autistic and non-autistic readers to imaginatively engage in the reading experience. Methods Seven autistic and six non-autistic participants read 8 short text extracts alone while listening to pre-recorded audio of an experienced reader reading each text aloud. Participants completed a reflective questionnaire for each text and a follow-up interview where moving parts of the text were then re-read aloud before discussion. Half of these texts were serious literature, while the other half were non-fiction. Similarly, half of the texts explored fictional social realities that depicted a lack of mutuality, or non-fiction accounts of autism; while the other half explored broader emotional experiences. Results Thematic and literary analysis of participant reflections and follow-up interviews revealed three main themes: (1) From Surface Reading to Intuitive Engagement, (2) Imaginative Feeling and (3) Going Forward from the Reading Experience. Discussion The findings showed that autistic readers were better able to hold onto the detailed complexity of serious literature, while non-autistic readers tended to reduce information down to key ideas and understandings for later generalization. Findings are discussed in relation to future shared reading designs.
... Autistic writer Joanne Limburg (2021) expands upon this assumption by arguing that dehumanised individuals, such as those who are autistic, are forced to think about the ways in which modern society is constructed, giving them deeper understandings of the social world. Therefore, autistic individuals may avoid assumptions of pre-existing social norms to consider the feelings and perspectives of different Others in ways that remain open to the complexity of individual experiences (Lesser and Murray, 2020). This is supported by research findings that autistic individuals are more socially tentative, requiring more time and care at the expense of fast-paced judgements that rely on immediate contextual cues alone (Capps et al., 1992). ...
... This is supported by research findings that autistic individuals are more socially tentative, requiring more time and care at the expense of fast-paced judgements that rely on immediate contextual cues alone (Capps et al., 1992). Therefore, what has previously been framed as difficulties with contextual consideration becomes re-framed as a potential advantage in remaining open to emergent social information (Lesser and Murray, 2020). As a result, autistic people may go beyond what is known immediately to tailor their social and affective responses to each individual social encounter empathically (Lesser and Murray, 2020). ...
... Therefore, what has previously been framed as difficulties with contextual consideration becomes re-framed as a potential advantage in remaining open to emergent social information (Lesser and Murray, 2020). As a result, autistic people may go beyond what is known immediately to tailor their social and affective responses to each individual social encounter empathically (Lesser and Murray, 2020). These assumptions are further expanded upon by the theory of monotropism (Murray et al., 2005), which seeks to expand upon the WCC through a less pathologised approach (Murray, 2020). ...
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Dominant theoretical models of autism and resultant research enquiries have long centered upon an assumed autism-specific empathy deficit. Associated empirical research has largely relied upon cognitive tests that lack ecological validity and associate empathic skill with heuristic-based judgments from limited snapshots of social information. This artificial separation of thought and feeling fails to replicate the complexity of real-world empathy, and places socially tentative individuals at a relative disadvantage. The present study aimed to qualitatively explore how serious literary fiction, through its ability to simulate real-world empathic response, could therefore enable more ecologically valid insights into the comparative empathic experiences of autistic and non-autistic individuals. Eight autistic and seven non-autistic participants read Of Mice and Men for six days while completing a semi-structured reflective diary. On finishing the book, participants were asked to engage in three creative writing tasks that encouraged reflective thinking across the novel. Thematic and literary analysis of the diary reflections and writing tasks revealed three main themes (1) Distance from the Novel; (2) Mobility of Response; (3) Re-Creating Literature. Findings demonstrated the usefulness of serious literature as a research tool for comparing the empathic experiences of autistic and non-autistic individuals. Specifically, autistic individuals often showed enhanced socio-empathic understandings of the literature with no empathy deficits when compared to non-autistic participants.
... This is because attention is an implication of perceptual state to multiple modality stimuli such as vision, auditory and text understanding. For example, salient map [6] is a popular tool for the estimation of spatial attention, which simulates the retina in eye. Pixel brightness in a salient map highlights the attractiveness of the related image region [1,2]. ...
... The salient map accumulates numerous salient features, e.g. contrast, color energy, texture and edge intensity [2,4], because the retina receives all visual salient stimuli using a spatial sensor of light sensitive neuron layers [6]. In addition, this biological mechanism provides an evidence to support spatial attention estimation. ...
... In this paper, we originally propose a graphic representation for salient signals. This works is inspired by salient map [6] and the multi-resolution autoregressive framework (MAR) [3]. Attention can be treated as ordinal data, as we care the strength relationship rather than actual intensity. ...
Article
Temporal attention is a psychological measurement of hu-man focus in a long perceptual process such as watching a sports video. This measurement facilitates the identification of the most attractive components in media documents, es-pecially in videos. In this paper, we propose a graphic rep-resentation which visualizes attention related temporal se-quences from multiple resolutions. Efficient image opera-tions are used to analyze perceptual attention. This results in an effective fusion approach for temporal attention esti-mation. We evaluate the effectiveness by the application of general highlight detection in sports videos, as sports high-lights are temporal attended area. The experimental collec-tion includes six full football games from FIFA World Cup and European Champion.
... The pre-attentive system is also called as feature-attention modelling [10] , which calculates stimulus strength as well as extracts salient features. However, such an extraction of salient features is usually incomplete [8]. These features may be ineffective for the discrimination of actual attention peaks [13], because of strong perceptual noise and variant stimulus types. ...
... Attention perception is a discreet temporal process in psychology: " people notice something at this moment and other things later " . A general stimulus-attention model is proposed in [8] , which consists of two differential equations to quantify the relationship among interest, attention and reflection of a human being in an unknown environment. Some complex issues are considered in this model, i.e. cultural background, personal experience and possible activity. ...
... In psychological terminology, these observers are ready to accept stimulus. Their reflection therefore follows the stimulus-reflection model [8] (Equation 1). ...
Conference Paper
Attention is a psychological measurement of human reflection against stimulus. We propose a general framework of highlight detection by comparing attention intensity during the watching of sports videos. Three steps are involved: adaptive selection on salient features, unified attention estimation and highlight identification. Adaptive selection computes feature correlation to decide an optimal set of salient features. Unified estimation combines these features by the technique of multi-resolution autoregressive (MAR) and thus creates a temporal curve of attention intensity. We rank the intensity of attention to discriminate boundaries of highlights. Such a framework alleviates semantic uncertainty around sport highlights and leads to an efficient and effective highlight detection. The advantages are as follows: (1) the capability of using data at coarse temporal resolutions; (2) the robustness against noise caused by modality asynchronism, perception uncertainty and feature mismatch; (3) the employment of Markovian constrains on content presentation, and (4) multi-resolution estimation on attention intensity, which enables the precise allocation of event boundaries.
... Cette approche implique cependant une fidélité au modèle biologique dont nous n'avons pas besoin (notre modèle doit avoir un comportement plausible, mais n'est pas destiné à être une réplique du système humain) et qui peut s'avérer être un handicap pour les performances de notre système (de par leur complexité). Une autre approche consiste à considérer le cerveau comme un système dynamique dont le comportement peut être modélisé plus globalement (Eliasmith, 1995;Lesser and Dinah, 1998). On remplace alors les réseaux de neurones des modèles distribués par un système d'équations différentielles représentatives du comportement à reproduire (Vitay et al., 2005;Fix, 2008). ...
... Les systèmes proies / prédateurs sont des systèmes d'équations habituellement utilisés pour simuler l'évolution et l'interaction de différentes colonies de proies et de prédateurs ainsi que d'autres phénomènes biologiques (Murray, 2003a;Murray, 2003b). Pour notre modèle, nous nous sommes inspirés de (Lesser and Dinah, 1998) afin de représenter l'évolution temporelle du focus d'attention. ...
Article
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Dans le domaine de l'analyse de scène en vision par ordinateur, un compromis doit être trouvé entre la qualité des résultats attendus et les ressources alloués pour effectuer les traitements. Une solution flexible consiste à utiliser un système de vision adaptatif capable de moduler sa stratégie d'analyse en fonction de l'information disponible et du contexte. Dans cet article, nous décrivons comment concevoir et évaluer un système d'attention visuelle conc cu pour interagir avec un système de vision de fac con à ce que ce dernier adapte ses traitements en fonction de l'intérêt (de la saillance) de chaque élément de la scène. Nous proposons égale- ment un nouvel ensemble de contrainte nommés PAIRED, permettant d'évaluer l'adéquation du modèle à différentes applications. Nous justifions le choix des systèmes dynamiques par leurs propriétés intéressantes pour simuler la compétition entre différentes sources d'informations. Nous présentons enfin une validation au travers de différentes métriques montrant que nos ré- sultats sont rapides, hautement configurables et pertinents.
... An alternative approach is to consider the brain as a dynamic system whose behavior can be modeled at a more global scale (Eliasmith, 1995;Lesser & Dinah, 1998). The microscopic representation provided by neural networks is then replaced by a differential equation system, which provides a mesoscopic view of the attentional phenomenon (Fix, 2008;Vitay et al., 2005). ...
... Predator-prey systems are defined by a set of equations whose objective is to simulate the evolution and the interactions of some colonies of prey and predators (Murray, 2003a(Murray, , 2003b). For our system, we have based our work on (Lesser & Dinah, 1998) so as to represent the time evolution of the focus of attention. ...
Chapter
In the field of scene analysis for computer vision, a trade-off must be found between the quality of the results expected and the amount of computer resources allocated for each task. Using an adaptive vision system provides a more flexible solution as its analysis strategy can be changed according to the information available concerning the execution context. The authors describe how to create and evaluate a visual attention system tailored for interacting with a computer vision system so that it adapts its processing according to the interest (or salience) of each element of the scene. The authors propose a new set of constraints called 'PAIRED' to evaluate the adequacy of a model with respect to its different applications. The authors then justify why dynamical systems are a good choice for visual attention simulation, and we show that predator-prey models provide good properties for simulating the dynamic competition between different kinds of information. They present different results (cross-correlation, Kullback-Leibler divergence, normalized scanpath salience) that demonstrate that, in spite of being fast and highly configurable, their results are as plausible as existing models designed for high biological fidelity.
... Interested reader can find more details about these systems in (Murray, 2002). For our system, we have based our work on (Lesser and Murray, 1998) so as to represent the time evolution of interest (or focus of attention) linked to, in a first time (see section 6), a static image. Traditionally, the evolution of preys / predators systems is governed by a small set of simple rules, inspired from Volterra-Lotka (Murray, 2002) equations: 1. the growth rate of preys is proportional to their population C and to a growth factor b; ...
... Explained in terms of preys / predators system, we favour the growth of the most organized populations (grouped in a small number of sites). Like in (Lesser and Murray, 1998), a quadratic term (modulated by w) has been added to the classical Volterra-Lotka equations. This term was added to simulate non-linearitiy (positive feedback) in our system . ...
Conference Paper
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This article evaluates different improvements of Laurent Itti's (Itti et al., 1998) visual attention model. Sixteen persons have participated in a qualitative evaluation protocol on a database of 48 images. Six different methods were evaluated, including a random fixations generation model. A real time conspicuity maps generation algorithm is also described. Evaluations show that this algorithm allows fast maps generation while improving saliency maps accuracy. The results of this study reveal that preys / predators systems can help modeling visual attention. The relatively good performances of our centrally biased random model also show the importance of the central preference in attentional models.
... Plus de détails sur ces systèmes peuvent être trouvés dans [7]. Dans notre système, nous nous somme inspirés de [6] afin de représenter l'évolution temporelle de l'intérêt (i. e. du focus d'attention) lié, dans un premier temps (cf. ...
... De manière similaire à [6] un terme quadratique modulé par le facteur w est ajouté aux équations classiques de Volterra- Lotka afin de simuler la non linéarité (feedback positif). Cette non-linéarité permet de renforcer la dynamique du système et facilite l'émergence du comportement chaotique du système en favorisant la saturation de certaines valeurs des matrices. ...
Conference Paper
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Cet article présente une méthode utilisant un système d'équations proies / prédateurs afin de simuler l'évolution temps réel du focus d'attention. Cette méthode permet une approche plus réaliste de l'attention visuelle sélective pour les systèmes de vision par ordinateur.
... They say that, like autistic people, computers (at least in 1998) are "naturally monotropic," singly-focused machines (Murray and Lesser, 1998a). Over two decades, Murray promoted monotropism as a mathematically and biologically grounded framework for autistic difference (Murray, 2018;Murray and Lesser, 1998b). In their work, Lesser (1998b, 1998a) clearly explain that, by positioning monotropism as biological, they intend to frame autism as a natural variation of humanity rather than something apart from it. ...
Article
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This theoretical essay builds on existing literature to draw out the consequences of dehumanizing and disseminating autism discourses within the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). Focusing mainly on narratives in HCI that frame autistic people as or like machines, we explore how dominant constructions of autism in HCI work to normalize the field’s complicity in violent autism intervention paradigms, despite HCI researchers’ well-meaning intentions. We work towards developing crip-cyborgs as an alternative framework for understanding autistic people (as opposed to computers or robots) and suggest crip technoscience as a framework for research based on this alternative understanding. In doing so, we hope to enroll misguided but well-intentioned researchers in dismantling anti-autistic ableism, both in and beyond HCI.
Chapter
In the field of scene analysis for computer vision, a trade-off must be found between the quality of the results expected and the amount of computer resources allocated for each task. Using an adaptive vision system provides a more flexible solution as its analysis strategy can be changed according to the information available concerning the execution context. The authors describe how to create and evaluate a visual attention system tailored for interacting with a computer vision system so that it adapts its processing according to the interest (or salience) of each element of the scene. The authors propose a new set of constraints called ‘PAIRED’ to evaluate the adequacy of a model with respect to its different applications. The authors then justify why dynamical systems are a good choice for visual attention simulation, and we show that predator-prey models provide good properties for simulating the dynamic competition between different kinds of information. They present different results (cross-correlation, Kullback-Leibler divergence, normalized scanpath salience) that demonstrate that, in spite of being fast and highly configurable, their results are as plausible as existing models designed for high biological fidelity.
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This paper examines the necessity for multidisciplinary work in diagnosing, understanding and making effective provision for children with autism. It also examines the constraints of multidisciplinary work and, through examples of good practice, shows how these may be accommodated. It suggests a broadening of the concept of 'multidisciplinary' to include collaborative work with parents, siblings and the individuals with autism themselves. It is only through this broad perspective that we can begin to address the paradox of the legitimate claims of individuals with autism not to be pathologised, while acknowledging and trying to meet their problems in coping.
Chapter
This work presents an original informational approach to extract visual information, model attention and evaluate the efficiency of the results. Even if the extraction of salient and useful information, i.e. observation, is an elementary task for human and animals, its simulation is still an open problem in computer vision. In this article, we define a process to derive optimal laws to extract visual information without any constraints or a priori. Starting from saliency definition and measure through the prism of information theory, we present a framework in which we develop an ecological inspired approach to model visual information extraction. We demonstrate that our approach provides a fast and highly configurable model, moreover it is as plausible as existing models designed for high biological fidelity. It proposes an adjustable trade-off between nondeterministic attentional behavior and properties of stability, reproducibility and reactiveness. We apply this approach to enhance the performance in an object recognition task. As a conclusion, this article proposes a theoretical framework to derive an optimal model validated by many experimentations.
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Cet article présente un démonstrateur de simulation d'attention visuelle incluant différentes améliorations du modèle de Laurent Itti [3]. Ce modèle utilise une approche basée sur les systèmes proies / prédateurs permettant de simuler une évolution temps réel du focus d'attention. Nous décrivons rapidement une méthode de génération de ces cartes de singularité, permettant le traitement temps réel sur un ordinateur standard tout en améliorant les performances finales sur la saillance. Enfin nous présentons notre démonstrateur qui mettra en avant les résultats obtenus sur des images fixes et sur des flux vidéos. Des comparaisons avec des algorithmes classiques et des résultats d'expériences occulométriques seront également proposées.
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