Irvine, Brian;
Elise, Freya;
Brinkert, Jana;
Poole, Daniel;
Farran, Emily K;
Milne, Elizabeth;
Scerif, Gaia;
... Remington, Anna; + view all
(2024)
‘A storm of post-it notes’: Experiences of perceptual capacity in autism and ADHD.
Neurodiversity
, 2
10.1177/27546330241229004.
(In press).
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Abstract
Lab-based tasks suggest autistic people have increased perceptual capacity (i.e. process more information at any one time) compared to non-autistic people. Here, we explored whether this increase is reflected in autistic people's day-to-day perceptual experiences and, when compared to those with ADHD/neurotypical people, whether commonalities/divergences in these experiences can illuminate differences between neurotypes. UK-based adults (108 autistic, 40 with ADHD, 79 autistic with ADHD, 85 neurotypical) completed an online survey about experiences of attention and distraction. Responses were analysed using thematic analysis. We found that participants of all neurotypes experienced periods of intense focus. Neurodivergent participants reported experiencing a barrage of information; autistic participants found this overwhelming, whereas those with ADHD referred to overload. This finding may reflect increased perceptual capacity for autistic people (adding ecological validity to previous findings regarding increased autistic perceptual capacity) vs. difficulties maintaining attentional priorities for those with ADHD. While differences between neurodivergent and neurotypical people were evident, discrepancies between experiences of neurodivergent groups were more subtle, suggesting that increased perceptual capacity may extend beyond autism. Consequently, perceptual capacity offers a useful framework to promote better understanding of one's own perceptual experiences, and to guide strategies to ameliorate any challenges encountered.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | ‘A storm of post-it notes’: Experiences of perceptual capacity in autism and ADHD |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/27546330241229004 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/27546330241229004 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | Attention, distractibility, focus, autism, ADHD, perception, perceptual capacity |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187561 |
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