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Распределение внимания в ходе категориального научения детей с расстройствами аутистического спектра
Categorical learning plays a key role in cognitive development, starting from infancy. Adults are more likely to use selective attention during learning, focusing on the primary features of objects, while children employ distributed attention, analyzing multiple features simultaneously. The use of selective attention leads to difficulties in learning when the learned rule becomes ineffective and a new rule must be determined. In such cases, adults are less successful compared to children.
The aim of this study was to identify the characteristics of categorical learning in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The study involved 39 participants: children with ASD, neurotypical children, and adults. All participants initially learned to differentiate categories based on one rule, and subsequently, on another rule due to a change in relevant features.
The results showed that adults and children with ASD experienced greater difficulty when switching features for categorical rules, which was reflected in a decline in performance to the level of random guessing. This indicates issues with selective attention and processing new information within this group.