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Faculty research attempts to better understand autism

Faculty research may provide the tools to better understand autism. Psychology professor Shannon Morgan has been conducting research that could benefit the lives of people with autism. Morgan’s research is in place in order to “see how people with autism see the world around them.”Morgan stated that people with autism pay more attention to objects, rather than people. In order to better understand the way people with autism view the world, she studies change blindness.

Change blindness is the idea that when someone watches a visual scene with a large change, the change goes undetected. This could be anything from a patch of grass changing color to an entire building disappearing. Most people think that there’s no way to miss such a big change as a building disappearing, but it’s undetected more often than not.

Morgan wants to show that children with autism are not affected by change blindness as severely as typically developing children. If this can be proven, she will be able to “evaluate how [children with autism] process incoming information.”

This study could be the breakthrough needed “to give us insight on how to create an optimal environment for children with autism to function in,” Morgan said.

She strives to find the answers needed in order to build the best setting for children with autism to learn and develop.

Think change blindness doesn’t affect you? Think again. Try it out at www.simonslab.com.