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Trouble with filtering multiple options. A theory called Weak Central Coherence

nidriks

Hiya all,

I came across a concept in autism last night and I'm trying to get an understanding of it. Don't balk at this, please, but I use AI to understand my memories and get an idea of traits for my upcoming assessment. I'm careful. I will always ask AI for examples, such as studies or websites, for anything it tells me.

That's why I'm here actually. I find too much information a challenge. That's another reason I find AI a help, because it filters lists. I used it when I started the Right To Choose program because I was presented with a huge list of 20+ providers and froze, not knowing who to choose. I find Google searches hard to process because there's often too many returns. I've done my Family Tree over at Ancestry but some searches can return pages numbering into double digits of hits. Ancestry will give me relevant hints, but they're not always helpful, so I check.

Something I thought about last night was how I can struggle with games like Magic The Gathering, Hearthstone or even roleplay games like Divinity: Original Sin 2. When I make decks in card games like Magic I tend to be very limited and make decks of all goblins or all elves. I find it hard to process a lot of cards and notice what cards will compliment what I have. I used to play a friend regularly around 2000 and he always beat me because my decks were too simple.

It's a similar story in Divinity. It's a roleplaying game like Baldur's Gate, if people aren't familiar, and it has a system of elemental magic that compliment each other. You can make an enemy wet and then electrocute them for extra damage, for example. Well, that's the theory, but I struggle to make it work. I'll find myself just setting up with the best damage spells and toughing it through fights.

I understand the ideas, but actually processing it is hard.

AI told me there was a theory called the Weak Central Coherence and that it explained my trouble with the above sort of things. I've searched for examples but seem to come up short. A lot of searching for autism and games suggests autistic people excel at board games. I can do fine at games, but they tend to be those with less variables.

I'm trying to understand myself better and be prepared for my autism assessment, and I'm looking for someone to tell me more about Weak Central Coherence. Does anyone else experience what I've mentioned?

  • in reply to Iain

    Thank you.

    It's interesting what you should say about the notes. Maybe it's not the same thing, but I seem to have this ability to easily detect when Alexa's voice changes. I spent 5 minutes the other week asking her if they'd changed her voice, and another 10 minutes searching the web. I do have trouble with certain sounds. I can't understand the word milk if I'm asked if I want milk with my tea in a cafe.

    It's something I might well mention during my assessment. Why I was always so bad at certain games always infuriated me, and I was always stubborn in games like Hearthstone to not make the standard meta decks. I would make themed decks of mine that would only ever do well to a certain level, but I'd still stick with them

    I've realised since, too, that Uta Frith is not super popular in autism circles right now. Grin

    I have a document I prepared listing lots of memories of things I've done that I have always highlighted as different. I'll send that off to Clinical Partners before my assessment. I had an ADHD assessment but felt so under prepared. I had notes but the assessment was so frantic that I didn't get a chance to look at them. I have this tendency to ramble and go down rabbit holes, you see. I went 30 minutes over the appointment time. And he still said he couldn't diagnose me ADHD because, a, it hasn't ruined my life (but, to me, that has a lot of context) and, b, he couldn't see enough evidence before 12. 40 years ago. So, this time I'll be prepared.

    That subject is fascinating though. The words you use do make me think heavily of how I play some games and how I cope with too many variables. I think there's definitely something in it. Maybe I'll put a note in my introduction in my traits document.

    Thanks, Iain

  • My understanding of WCC is that it was first advanced as a theory in the 1980s by Uta Firth, who writes a good summary of it in her book "Autism, A Very Short Introduction". She says:

    It is a reference to the normally strong drive for meaning. With strong central coherence there is a pre-set preference towards perceiving wholes rather than parts. We perceive a drawing of an object and not a jumble of lines; we hear a sentence and not a jumble of words. The whole is often referred to as a Gestalt, a German term for overall form. It is used by psychologists to explain why we are normally geared to perceiving global wholes rather than local parts. However, it is only possible to show this preference when there is too much information and you can’t do both at the same time.

    Context is another way of describing the whole or Gestalt and its relationship to the parts. The context gives meaning to the parts. A single note of music may sound very loud when preceded by a very softly played part. The same note may sound very soft, when preceded by a loudly played part. The same is true for the pitch of tones. Absolute pitch is the ability to hear a tone exactly as it is, regardless of its context. Amazingly, about 30 per cent of individuals with autism, not trained in music, have this ability.

    Weak central coherence (WCC) is a way of saying that context does not exert much force. The bits and pieces set inside a particular context are seen as what they are—the same—even if Seeing the world differently they look quite different in another context. With strong central coherence, the meaning of an element can be altered so much that it sometimes cannot be recognized as the same piece in another context.

    Most other material on the subject appears to be in the form of research publications that I don't have access to unfortunately.

    There seems to be mixed results from clinical trials from what I can see and there is no consensus of the validity of the theory, so I would not focus too much on this aspect and spend more time looking at your other autistic traits to build a better understanding of how your autistic traits impact you.

    You are a much more complex person than just this trait. Information is limited on it and it is uncertain if the theory if even correct (I am talking about the theory, not your symptoms) so it is quite possibly leading you down a pointless rabbit hole.

    The Irony does not escape me that the advice is to not focus on the subject which is a form of hyperfocus.