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Temporal context memory in high-functioning autism

Service Psychothérapique pour Enfants et Adolescents, Strasbourg, France, agnes.gras{at}chru-strasbourg.fr

Laurent Mottron

Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies, Montréal, Canada

Pierre Salame

Département de Psychiatrie, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, France

Claude Bursztejn

Service Psychothérapique pour Enfants et Adolescents, Strasbourg, France

Jean-Marie Danion

Département de Psychiatrie, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, France

Episodic memory, i.e. memory for specific episodes situated in space and time, seems impaired in individuals with autism. According to weak central coherence theory, individuals with autism have general difficulty connecting contextual and item information which then impairs their capacity to memorize information in context. This study investigated temporal context memory for visual information in individuals with autism. Eighteen adolescents and adults with high-functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger syndrome (AS) and age- and IQmatched typically developing participants were tested using a recency judgement task. The performance of the autistic group did not differ from that of the control group, nor did the performance between the AS and HFA groups. We conclude that autism in high-functioning individuals does not impair temporal context memory as assessed on this task. We suggest that individuals with autism are as efficient on this task as typically developing subjects because contextual memory performance here involves more automatic than organizational processing.

Key Words: Asperger syndrome • autism • episodic memory • temporal context memory

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Autism, Vol. 11, No. 6, 523-534 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1362361307083257


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Gras-Vincendon, A. Articles by Danion, J.-M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Gras-Vincendon, A. Articles by Danion, J.-M. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?