An entropic explanation of insistence on sameness in autism

Purpose An information theory-based framework is proposed in attempt to explain insistence on sameness in autism as an instance of a general behavior pattern in which an individual tries to reduce surprise and uncertainty. It offers a new definition of autism as an impairment in which cognitive functions are restricted to discrimination, memorization and prediction of tangible properties of the environment . Methods An analogy between insistence on sameness and constrained minimization of the entropy metric is observed and examined for a set of assumptions that describe cognitive limitations of a person with autism. The metric is given by the formula D H ( R, M ) = H ( R | M )+ H ( M | R ), where R represents sequences of random stimuli, M is a memory that stores and retrieves them, and where H (·|·) denotes their conditional entropies interpreted as surprise and uncertainty , respectively. Results It is first inferred that to minimize the metric an individual can learn about R (and store that knowledge in M ) or can restrict R to the already known M . Then, it is concluded that insistence on sameness is a manifestation of the latter. Moreover, it is shown that the proposed framework: (1) Helps to quantify the concepts of surprise, uncertainty, sensory overload and deprivation, anxiety, comfort zone, disappointment, disorientation, pedantry, rigidness, observance or aberrant precision . (2) Leads to a list of guidelines for learning therapies and daily care routines, and allows them to be defined as optimization algorithms and implemented as programs for robotic live-in caregivers . (3) Can be validated with the help of a Turing test -like approach that requires no experiments involving individuals with autism. Conclusion The framework—if positively validated—will provide advantages of both theoretical and practical importance: it explains the insistent on sameness as a consequence of cognitive restrictions and offers formal foundations and design guidelines for therapies aimed at improving self-reliance of individuals with autism in basic activities of daily living .