Is the contextual effect weak in people with Williams syndrome? An investigation of information integration ability using pictures.
People with Williams syndrome can link picture meanings if you give them more time.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Hsu (2013) asked 20 teens and adults with Williams syndrome to look at simple picture sets.
Each set had one target picture and four context pictures.
The task: pick the two context pictures that go with the target.
A control group of 20 typical peers did the same task.
The team timed every choice and counted correct matches.
What they found
Both groups used the context, but the WS group took longer and made more errors.
They still picked matching pictures above chance, so the skill is there, just slower.
The gap shows delayed, not missing, central coherence.
How this fits with other research
Farmer-Dougan et al. (1999) saw the same delay in a single WS twin.
Their case data now get group-level backing from Ching-Fen.
Hagopian et al. (2005) tested weak coherence in autism and found only weak ties to social skills.
Ching-Fen shows coherence in WS is also only part of the story, not the whole lens.
López et al. (2008) split coherence into two parts in autism and found they can move opposite ways.
Ching-Fen’s slower-but-possible scores fit that idea: integration is a skill set, not one switch.
Why it matters
When you test a client with WS, give extra wait time on picture sorts or social scenes.
The skill is present, so you can still teach categories, sequencing, and social stories.
Just slow the pace and add prompts; accuracy will rise.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Previous studies have shown that deficiencies in visuospatial perception and semantic processing in people with Williams syndrome (WS) are due to deficient central cohesiveness. Unlike previous studies that used abstract stimuli, this study used pictures to determine the relative ability of people with WS to integrate contextual information with the aim of exploring the nature of central coherence in people with WS. Participants were sequentially presented with a leading background picture followed by a single-item target picture and required to assess the congruence of the two pictures. The results showed that our participants with WS performed the same pattern as controls matched by chronological age (CA) and mental age (MA), demonstrating a contextual effect between congruent and incongruent conditions. Using concrete pictures, contextual integration was successfully induced in people with WS. There were differences between groups in response latencies and accuracy percentages, suggesting that contextual integration in information processing normally develops from childhood to adulthood, but is delayed in people with WS.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.11.015