Weak Central Coherence

Weak central coherence is a cognitive theory, proposed by Uta Frith in the late 1980s, holding that autistic individuals tend to process information in a detail-focused way and have relative difficulty drawing separate details together into an integrated overall picture or context. Frith described this style informally as an inability to see the forest for the trees: strong perception and memory for individual parts, but weaker spontaneous extraction of global meaning or gist. The theory has been offered as one possible explanation both for certain autistic strengths, such as exceptional attention to detail, and certain difficulties, such as trouble following contextual social cues.