"I have to translate the colors": Description and implications of a genuine case of phoneme color synaesthesia.

The aim of this paper was to assess the genuineness of a case of phoneme color synesthesia (VA) by evaluating the influence of several psycholinguistic levels with different stimuli (isolated vowels, nonsense syllables, and words). Results demonstrate the robustness of the synesthesia no matter what the type of stimuli. To explore how this form of synesthesia manifested itself in everyday conversation, interviews were also conducted.

Thinking in pictures in everyday life situations among autistic adults.

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.

Interests and Strengths in Autism, Useful but Misunderstood: A Pragmatic Case-Study.

Background: Studies on autistic strengths are often focused on what they reveal about autistic intelligence and, in some cases, exceptional and atypical reasoning abilities. An emerging research trend has demonstrated how interests and strengths often evident in autism can be harnessed in interventions to promote the well-being, adaptive, academic and professional success of autistic people. However, abilities in certain domains may be accompanied by major limitations in others, as well as psychiatric and behavioral issues, which may challenge their inclusion in support programs.

Synesthesia & autistic features in a large family: Evidence for spatial imagery as a common factor.

Background: Autism and synesthesia are neurodevelopmental conditions associated with variants of perceptual processing. They also share some genetic variants and include a large magnitude of intra-categorical variation: 60 types for synesthesia, as well as a spectrum for autism. In order to investigate the relationship between these two phenomena, we investigated the family of FC, an autistic individual who also possess savant abilities and synesthesia manifestations.

When synesthesia and savant abilities are mistaken for hallucinations and delusions: contribution of a cognitive approach for their differential diagnosis.

Objective: Schizophrenia is characterized by hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and behavior, and other symptoms that cause social or occupational dysfunction. However, some of these symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, can be indicative of other phenomena such as synesthesia and savant abilities. The aim of this paper is to highlight how neurological and psychiatric conditions can be confused and how formal neuropsychological evaluations can be necessary to distinguish them.

Auditory local bias and reduced global interference in autism.

Processing local elements of hierarchical patterns at a superior level and independently from an intact global influence is a well-established characteristic of autistic visual perception. However, whether this confirmed finding has an equivalent in the auditory modality is still unknown. To fill this gap, 18 autistics and 18 typical participants completed a melodic decision task where global and local level information can be congruent or incongruent.

Veridical mapping in savant abilities, absolute pitch, and synesthesia: an autism case study.

An enhanced role and autonomy of perception are prominent in autism. Furthermore, savant abilities, absolute pitch, and synesthesia are all more commonly found in autistic individuals than in the typical population. The mechanism of veridical mapping has been proposed to account for how enhanced perception in autism leads to the high prevalence of these three phenomena and their structural similarity.

Auditory Stream Segregation in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Benefits and Downsides of Superior Perceptual Processes.

Auditory stream segregation allows us to organize our sound environment, by focusing on specific information and ignoring what is unimportant. One previous study reported difficulty in stream segregation ability in children with Asperger syndrome. In order to investigate this question further, we used an interleaved melody recognition task with children in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Veridical mapping in the development of exceptional autistic abilities.

Superior perception, peaks of ability, and savant skills are often observed in the autistic phenotype. The enhanced perceptual functioning model (Mottron et al., 2006a) emphasizes the increased role and autonomy of perceptual information processing in autistic cognition.

Global precedence effect in audition and vision: evidence for similar cognitive styles across modalities.

This study aimed to provide evidence for a Global Precedence Effect (GPE) in both vision and audition modalities. In order to parallel Navon's paradigm, a novel auditory task was designed in which hierarchical auditory stimuli were used to involve local and global processing. Participants were asked to process auditory and visual hierarchical patterns at the local or global level.