1. National Brain Research Centre, Manesar
Human, but More So: Autism, Level of Construal, and Lacan's « meurtre de la chose »
Matthew Belmonte
National Brain Research Centre, Manesar

2. “Thinking in pictures”

3. Psychological distance (Trope). spatial. social. temporal
Psychological distance (Trope) * spatial * social * temporal * hypothetical Interacts with level of construal, which is equivalent to Frith's and Happé's “central coherence” Typical non-autistic individuals primed for psychological distance exhibit increased level of construal, and vice versa. What about autism? How might non-social level of construal covary with social communicative function?

4. N N N N N N N N N N N N

5. Fig. 2. Two examples of incongruent visual stimuli: a word denoting social proximity, “us,” located far from the observer, and a word denoting social remoteness, “them,” located near the observer.
Published by AAAS
spatial distance is associated with temporal distance, social distance, and hypotheticality
Two examples of incongruent visual stimuli: a word denoting social proximity, “us,” located far from the observer, and a word denoting social remoteness, “them,” located near the observer. Because spatial distance is associated with temporal distance, social distance, and hypotheticality, participants are slower to indicate the location of the arrow and to identify the word on it with incongruent stimuli than with congruent stimuli [“us” located near the observer and “them” located far from the observer (6)].
N Liberman, Y Trope Science 2008;322:

6. Fig. 3. Items from the Gestalt Completion Test (11).
Participants were better at identifying pictures that they believed were sample items of a more distant future task or a less likely task.
Published by AAAS
Items from the Gestalt Completion Test (11). Identifying the pictures (from top-right to bottom left: a boat, a rider on a horse, a rabbit, a baby) requires visual abstraction. Participants were better at identifying pictures that they believed were sample items of a more distant future task (12) or a less likely task (13).
N Liberman, Y Trope Science 2008;322:

7. Level of construal and repetitive behaviours

9. Level of construal and language « Le symbole se manifeste d’abord comme meurtre de la chose… » –Jacques Lacan, Fonction et champ de la parole et du langage en psychanalyse

11. Level of construal and “theory of mind”: “It's just that putting myself in someone else's shoes means that I first have to force that person out of their own shoes.” –posting on AUTISM mailing list, 1994

13. Level of construal and the genesis of humanity

15. Therapeutic implications: a non-social 'back door' approach to social communicative competence?

16. Level of construal and human cognitive diversity

18. Belmonte et al., JCPP, 2010

21. Autistic traits and cognitive sex differences:
Men (bot not women) with prolonged go/no-go reaction times have lesser social perceptual and social communicative capacities.

22. Women's (but not men's) choices of a scientific field of study correlate with perceptual disembedding and attention to detail; men's choices correlate with social communicative impairment.

25. What curing autism means to us
Give people the communicative abilities to share their unique insights with the rest of the social world
Do not delete those insights

27. Darshana Tuladhar
Yue Yu
Keith Yoder
Kai Chen
AndrewBarsky