Semantic feature dissociation: A new hypothesis concerning autism

Hare, Ian (2020) Semantic feature dissociation: A new hypothesis concerning autism. Philosophical Psychology, 33 (1). pp. 102-124. ISSN 0951-5089

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Abstract

In this paper, I outline a new candidate hypothesis concerning autism: Semantic Feature Dissociation (SFD). This is the claim that, in some cases of autism, connections between feature representations in semantic memory may be weaker. More specifically, connections representing low-strength correlations may be disproportionately lost. I demonstrate the wide-ranging effects this change would have by introducing two analytical categories, concept narrowing (CN) (a tendency to make fewer inferences from the same concepts) and concept specialization (CS) (a tendency to be sensitive to fewer cues in categorization). Presenting the results of a novel qualitative study of autism autobiographies, I show that SFD can plausibly explain many common autism traits, as described by autistic autobiographers. I conclude by considering how far this account might generalize, and how it might be related to existing theories of autism.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	autism,autobiography,categorization,concepts,semantic memory,explanation,account,abnormalities,spectrum disorder,coherence,children,philosophy,applied psychology ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1211
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies (former - to 2024)
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	27 Nov 2019 02:01
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2024 14:22
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/73125
DOI:	10.1080/09515089.2019.1683728

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