The Ravenous Brain interpretation of autism

Vlad Didorchuk

Source: Pedersen, T. (2014, October 12). New Hypothesis Posits Autism as Disorder of Prediction. Retrieved October 14, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/10/12/new-hypothesis-autism-as-a-disorder-of-prediction/76031.html

            This article discusses a new hypothesis proposed by a team of MIT neuroscientists that characterizes autism as a disorder rooted in an inability to properly predict events in ones surrounding environment. Unlike a normal individual, who can predict incidents or other people’s reactions with a fair degree of accuracy, the neuroscientists assert that a person afflicted with autism, who lacks proper predictive abilities, views the world as one of chaos and randomness. In order to cope with their unpredictable world, autistic individuals immerse themselves in a highly predictive and hierarchical cocoon. While activities relying on one’s ability to infer and react, such as social interactions, may be impaired, the scientists state that activities based on rules, such as math, art or music, remain unaffected or are even enhanced.

            The hypothesis of the MIT neuroscientists is an alternate explanation to Bor’s interpretation of autism in The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning. Bor views autism as a disorder involving an overabundance of information being processed by the brains of autistic individuals. Those with autism cope with this over-processing by creating a highly ordered and predictable environment that brings in a comfortable level of stimuli. Bor does not believe those afflicted with autism suffer an impairment in predicting events but that they stray from social situations as they are filled with too much information. Logical and hierarchical actives are comforting as they are more predictable and do not require the wide-spectrum processing necessary in social situations. Thus under Bor’s view, autistic individuals have delayed linguistic and social development not because they suffer an impairment in predicting their surroundings, but because they are instead drawn to more structured activities and choose not to deal with the overstimulation associated with social and linguistic activities.