In your research, you’ve had the opportunity to interact with people on the autism spectrum who have significant disabilities. This challenges a number of stereotypes about autistic people being brilliant musicians: some wonder whether Bartók or Satie might have been on the autism spectrum… Here, we’re in a different field; is this a field where music is already present and used? Are there any studies on the relationship between these individuals and sound or music?
Please note: It is highly frowned upon to make posthumous diagnoses when one lacks the necessary evidence to do so—although there are still some individuals for whom there are strong suspicions, such as Glenn Gould, who meets a number of criteria.
As for people with autism who are described as “low-functioning,” “severely impaired,” or “with severe symptoms,” first of all, none of these terms sit well with me because they focus solely on what we see, on what is visible to us—that is, people with significant motor impairments, for whom developing spoken language is very difficult. This does not mean that verbal communication is inaccessible to them; rather, it takes the form of written communication. So we jump to the conclusion too quickly that these are people with cognitive deficits, since those are our two main ways of assessing someone’s level of cognitive functioning. However, we may be missing something.
The research program I coordinate (“Mapping Autistic Cognitive Abilities,” https://www.maca.community) aims, as a whole, to explore what
people with autism are capable of doing and producing. I want to develop a component of this project focused on autistic people with “low-functioning” abilities—that is the official term, and perhaps the least pejorative one, since these are people who need support due to their motor and verbal difficulties, and because their ability to acquire the social skills necessary for independence is severely impaired. Sadly, and especially in France, these individuals are often placed in institutions with relatively little psycho-educational support. Fortunately, this is changing. But until recently, the best they could hope for was occupational therapy. My hypothesis is that these individuals possess much higher levels of cognitive ability than is commonly believed.
How can we highlight these capabilities?
In fact, the real challenge lies in figuring out how to access these abilities in order to measure them. We have good reason to believe that these abilities are extremely specific and very rarely found among “neurotypical” people—that is, people who do not have neurological differences—though, one might wonder if such a thing even exists—someone who is truly neurotypical—but we can assume that those who are generally within the average range are neurotypical, even though everyone has little aspects that fall outside the norm… (In the world of research, there aren’t many neurotypical people!
It’s a niche for people who function a little differently…) For example, returning to the topic of music, we have good reason to suspect that some people on the autism spectrum have auditory perception abilities that extend well beyond the usual frequency range, into the sub-bass and ultrasonic ranges. We can also assume that their ability to distinguish between frequencies is much greater than that of neurotypical people, or that they have abilities to identify sound patterns or tempo that neurotypical people lack.
People with autism are often very good at recognizing patterns. But be careful—we mustn’t generalize; no two people with autism are alike, and their neural architecture is always highly unusual. We’re in for big surprises every time.
What do you mean by "pattern"?
Imaginons qu’on se promène sur un chemin à la lisière de la forêt. À chaque fois qu’on pass à côté d’un champ de maïs, les feuilles des arbres prennent une forme légèrement différente de celle qui sont à côté d’une friche ou d’un champ de blé, parce que les pesticides spécifiques répandus sur les champs de maïs sont transportés par le vent et modifient la forme des feuilles. C’est un pattern, il y a une règle : à chaque fois qu’on est à côté d’un champ de maïs, la forme des feuilles des arbres est légèrement modifiée. Une personne autiste percevra cela très spontanément – ou plutôt, si quelqu’un le perçoit spontanément, ce sera probablement quelqu’un qui est dans le spectre autistique. Pour les autres, ce n’est pas un pattern évident. Mais la personne autiste sera au contraire surprise que les autres ne le voient pas, cela va lui « sauter au yeux ». Donc on peut tout à fait imaginer que les personnes autistes ont un rapport au son, à la musique, qui est peut-être fondamentalement différent du nôtre, ou que certaines personnes autistes ont une approche de la musique extrêmement inhabituelle et qui répond à d’autres
motivations cognitives que celles de la plupart des gens. Or les personnes autistes dites « de bas niveau de fonctionnement » – qui ne peuvent pas s’exprimer à l’oral, et qui n’ont pas appris à lire et à écrire – ne peuvent pas me communiquer la manière dont elles perçoivent la musique. Et même si j’ai cette hypothèse qu’elles perçoivent la musique de manière différente, et parfois à un niveau plus élevé, en quelque sorte plus performant que le mien, je n’ai pas de moyen de le savoir. D’une part, elles n’ont pas de moyen de savoir que je ne perçois pas ce qu’elles perçoivent ; et moi, je n’ai pas de moyen de supposer qu’elles perçoivent quelque chose que je ne perçois pas. On est donc face à une problématique qui est un peu la problématique des chercheurs qui étudient l’intelligence animale : comment faire pour mesurer une intelligence que je n’ai pas ? C’est la première difficulté : il faut que je mesure quelque chose que je ne sais pas mesurer parce que je ne sais même pas que cela existe. Mais à cela vient s’ajouter un autre problème : même si je voulais utiliser des outils de mesure sur des choses que je sais bien mesurer, par exemple sur la mémoire de travail, la flexibilité mentale, les capacités d’attention, je ne pourrais pas le faire parce que la grande majorité des tests comportent des instructions verbales. Or quand je donne une instruction verbale à une personne autiste dite « à bas niveau de fonctionnement », je ne sais pas ce qu’elle a compris : elle peut avoir compris quelque chose, mais je ne sais pas si elle a compris ce que je lui demande. Le rapport au langage est très compliqué, pas seulement du fait qu’il est difficile d’accès – même s’il l’est souvent. Il y a aussi des difficultés de langage propres à l’autisme, même chez des personnes de très haut niveau, qui seront capables d’apprendre six ou douze langues. Il reste des difficultés subtiles, des troubles de la pragmatique : la difficulté à mettre le langage dans le bon contexte par exemple. On retrouve des troubles du langage sur l’ensemble du spectre autistique. Donc c’est mieux de passer par des tests qui ne s’appuient pas sur du langage, ni pour les instructions, ni pour la réponse. Il existe bien des tests qui se passent de langage, par exemple le test de la matrice de Raven. Comme cela a été montré dans une étude célèbre réalisée chez des personnes autistes identifiées comme ayant un retard cognitif important (avec un QI de Wechsler de 30 ou 40), la majorité d’entre elles repassent 3 en fait au-dessus du seuil considéré comme celui de la « déficience intellectuelle » avec cette matrice de Raven. Mais même avec ce test, ce n’est pas si évident parce que cela demande de manipuler de petites pièces. Il faut une habileté motrice que certaines personnes sévèrement polyhandicapées n’ont pas. Donc la question que je me pose est : comment accéder à ces personnes, quels sont les outils qu’on peut développer et qui nous permettent d’accéder à leurs fonctions cognitives, à leur efficience mentale, et qui ne mettent en jeu ni le langage, ni la motricité.
C’est à ce moment qu’intervient l’atelier de Patrice Moullet à La Défense. Il a créé de nombreux instruments, entre autres l’OMNI, et souhaitait que des chercheurs s’en emparent pour en faire une valorisation scientifique, parce qu’il avait remarqué le potentiel de cet instrument entre les mains d’individus polyhandicapés. Il fait des ateliers avec des centres d’accueil pour personnes polyhandicapées parmi lesquelles beaucoup sont considérées comme autistes avec retard cognitif. Quand je suis entrée dans l’atelier, je suis tombée en adoration immédiate pour tous ces instruments ! J’ai commencé à jouer de tout, pendant une heure, ils ne pouvaient plus m’arrêter ! Je pense que Patrice Moullet est un génie, qu’il a compris des choses sur la musique.
Ses instruments sont assez monumentaux, ils font plusieurs mètres, et ils impliquent le corps entier et pas seulement les mains. Donc si on n’est pas très habile de ses dix doigts, ce n’est pas grave. Et une autre particularité de ces instruments est qu’on comprend immédiatement comment on peut en jouer, cela permet tout de suite de produire quelque chose, il n’y a quasiment pas de phase d’apprentissage. Cela ne veut pas dire qu’il n’y a pas de progression, qu’on ne devient pas expert de l’instrument au fur et à mesure, mais on n’a pas besoin d’entraînement, d’apprentissage spécifique, pour pouvoir jouer quelque chose. En dix secondes, on a compris et on peut jouer. En psychologie, on appelle cela l’affordance d’un objet, son degré d’utilisabilité immédiate (par exemple, l’affordance d’une chaise, c’est qu’on
peut s’asseoir dessus). L’affordance de l’OMNI, c’est qu’on peut jouer sur des touches, c’est vraiment très immédiat. Cela rend ses instruments très accessibles aux personnes qui sont très handicapées.
Donc à la fin de cette heure où il m’a laissée jouer avec tous ses instruments, j’étais évidemment enthousiaste pour travailler avec lui.
Tout cela, c’était en 2016. Et depuis, il a été difficile de monter un projet parce que je pars de zéro, parce que rien n’a jamais été fait avec l’OMNI sur le plan scientifique, et parce que les personnes autistes avec de forts handicaps sont une population vraiment très peu étudiée. Sur l’ensemble des études sur l’autisme – et il y en a beaucoup, c’est un sujet qui attire l’attention des scientifiques en ce moment – moins de 6% incluent des personnes déficitaires.
What is the reason for this? Is it more rewarding to work with people on the autism spectrum who are considered “high-functioning”?
It’s not because it’s more rewarding; it’s just because it’s possible. We have very few tests without verbal instructions, so we have people who understand the instructions take them. Our standard tools in neuropsychology aren’t suited for nonverbal individuals. And there’s another, less “flattering” explanation: researchers may not realize that these individuals likely possess more abilities and intelligence than what’s apparent at first glance. It’s true that there are some very interesting cases, such as this man who was able to fly over New York City in a helicopter just once and then draw it to scale and without any errors—that’s impressive (https://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/). A significant percentage of these children (8 to 20 percent, depending on the study) are able to learn to read without being taught: one day you realize they can read. That said, they don’t always understand what they’ve read—or rather, they haven’t yet acquired our criteria for comprehension—but they may understand other things that are beyond our grasp.
So these abilities emerge; they appear even when we aren’t looking for them, but it’s difficult to find a method to measure them.
Returning to the OMNI, despite my complete lack of knowledge about current research in music, when I played it, I saw the potential of this device as a measurement tool. I’ve attended numerous workshops with people with severe disabilities, particularly those on the autism spectrum. If given enough time, they all eventually learn to use it and play music.
Who are they playing for? Is it just for themselves, or also for the people around them?
This boils down to asking whether the OMNI is a means of communication for these people. Based on my own experience—and on the experiences of the people I’ve discussed this with (because it’s such a fascinating instrument, people talk about it with passion)—when you play as an amateur, you get swept up in it. It’s a state of rapture in both senses of the word: you’re very happy, and you’re completely absorbed by what’s happening.
The OMNI operates on three levels: the player, the instrument, and the person who selects the sound bank from the computer. There are numerous sound banks with different behaviors. Some sounds have their own rhythm. If you play these sounds, you’re carried along by that rhythm. If you play a sound bank that doesn’t have its own rhythm, you create your own rhythm. Some sounds stop when you press the next key, while others continue and overlap, so you can either play chords or use single notes. But single notes can themselves form chords, depending on the sound bank you’re playing from. Depending on which type of sounds you’re using, you don’t play the same way. It’s like a giant musical Lego set, where you play like a child. So I don’t get the impression that they’re playing for others. But that’s just an impression. Sometimes they play in pairs, especially with the workshop facilitator. And in those moments, a human connection can form—through exchanged glances—and either through synchronized movements or, conversely, through taking turns: you press a key, I listen to the sound, I press a key… each in turn.
Interaction is possible. But above all, I think they’re playing for themselves, for the sheer joy of playing and creating music—at least, that’s my hypothesis.
You use the term “music”; for whom is it music? Can we imagine what “music” means to these people?
To me—and to the people who lead the workshops—it sounds like music, but I still brought in a musician to ask him if he considered it music, because I feel that, as a cognitive scientist, I’m not in a position to judge that for myself. He was a jazz musician who does a lot of improvisation.
And for him, there was no doubt about it—it was music. We could also imagine a participatory research protocol in which we’d make about ten recordings available to the public online—five of which were produced by a person with autism and five chosen at random—and ask participants to identify which ones are music, and to rate the level of musicality on a scale of 1 to 10. This would make it possible to objectively assess whether or not it is music.
When I asked you that question, I was mainly wondering to what extent it matters whether or not it’s music. How does that change things in terms of the goal of engaging these people’s cognitive abilities?
I really like your question! Technically, it doesn’t change a thing. Let’s say it isn’t music… but in that case, what would it be? Sound? Noise?
There are likely sounds that are neither noise nor music… Defining the boundaries of music is a recurring topic of debate in ethnomusicology. But instead of trying to draw a line between what is music and what is not, we can also question our need to distinguish between what we label “music” and what we do not. So I wonder why, even in a project whose purpose isn’t musicological, we keep coming back to the criteria for assigning this “music” label without being able to let go of it. You’re right, it doesn’t matter at all. But since I still believe, despite everything, that this is music, it would mean that these people—who generally have never held an instrument in their hands—are capable of producing music. We could draw conclusions from this about what might be universal in the functioning of the human brain. But that’s getting way off track! For now, that’s not what interests us.
On the other hand, if, instead of starting with an auditory definition of music, we define it as a social phenomenon—one that exists only because people, collectively, decide that it is music—can we uncover another potential of the instrument: that of connecting people with whom it is very difficult to communicate? Does a social definition of music help shed light on the potential of the OMNI?
Ce n’est pas sur cet aspect que j’oriente mon travail, mais il est vrai qu’il y a un aspect social très fort. Pendant qu’une personne handicapée joue, il y a cet effet de la musique : nous sommes tous concentrés sur la musique dans la salle, nous avons cela en commun à cet instant-là, et à la fin, tout le monde exprime de la joie, les gens applaudissent, ils félicitent le joueur, le joueur est content, il sent qu’il se passe quelque chose. Donc il se produit à ce moment-là un lien social évident.
Donc la présence de ces rituels – écoute, applaudissements – contribue à définir des moments de musique…
Oui, le corps est penché en avant dans une attitude d’écoute, on voit les expressions faciales du plaisir, et parfois même des émotions fortes, des larmes…
Mais ce n’est pas sur cet aspect que je centre mes recherches. Ce que j’ai envie de regarder, c’est la structure de la musique produite – appelons-la musique, même si un terme plus neutre me conviendrait bien. J’ai commencé à réfléchir à un protocole qui est un protocole classique de neurosciences, mais avec une approche de sciences humaines et sociales.
Si tout se passait comme je le voudrais, on pourrait récupérer les enregistrements MIDI 1 de 6 personnes autistes très handicapées qui jouent dans les conditions suivantes : sans qu’on interagisse avec eux, et en leur laissant le temps de bien s’approprier l’instrument et son jeu.
Le temps de l’autisme est un temps très long, donc parfois, on a l’impression qu’il ne se passe rien alors que c’est juste parce qu’il faut se donner le temps. On est vraiment en terre complètement inconnue, nos critères habituels ne servent plus à rien. Il faut arriver avec un regard scientifique capable de repérer et de classifier, mais un regard suffisamment neuf pour arriver à repérer des choses que normalement, on ne regarde pas.
Donc il faut qu’ils aient fait suffisamment de visites pour être à l’aise avec l’instrument, et il faut les laisser jouer idéalement deux ou trois minutes pour qu’ils puissent être vraiment dedans. Et là, on peut récupérer plusieurs minutes de production musicale.
Dans un premier temps, ce que j’observe visuellement sur les fichiers MIDI que j’ai récupérés et qu’il faudrait maintenant analyser en détail, c’est une structuration du fichier. On voit une structuration du tempo. Ce que je voudrais faire, c’est enregistrer des séquences sonores produites par ces gens dans les conditions que je vous ai décrites, et faire des analyses mathématiques qui permettent de mettre en évidence des structures dans ce qu’ils ont produit :
des enchaînements de notes ou de touches, et des structures rythmiques. Si je fais apparaître des motifs répétés avec des effets de complexification au fur et à mesure que le motif se répète, ou des motifs entrelacés, s’il existe des motifs avec une architecture de ces motifs, je peux alors montrer d’une manière irréfutable que le cerveau qui a produit cela est capable de produire quelque chose de complexe. Pour l’instant, lorsque je dis à mes collègues neuroscientifiques que ces enfants handicapés font de la musique avec l’OMNI, la réponse est : tu penses que c’est de la musique, mais ils font cela au hasard, comme un enfant qui prend un pinceau et fait un gribouillis, c’est joli mais c’est le fruit du hasard. Avec l’OMNI, ce n’est pas parce que les sons en eux-mêmes sont jolis que c’est forcément une structure
musicale. Donc il faut démontrer mathématiquement qu’il y a des motifs dans ce que ces personnes produisent, pour conclure que seul un cerveau capable de complexité peut produire une telle structure sonore.
L’idée serait d’avoir ainsi un accès à leurs capacités mentales. C’est un accès très indirect, mais il a l’avantage d’être très écologique. Les mesures dites « écologiques » sont les mesures qui sont prises dans les conditions les plus proches possibles de la vie réelle. D’habitude, nos méthodes de travail sont très détachées de la vie réelle : on vous amène dans le bureau du neuropsychologue à l’hôpital ou dans la salle d’expérimentation d’un laboratoire universitaire, souvent au sous-sol, au fond d’un couloir en béton, dans une salle éclairée au néon avec un ordinateur sur une table et une chaise pas très confortable… On est loin des conditions
habituelles de vie dans lesquelles on manifeste les différentes dimensions de l’intelligence.
Les tâches écologiques sont intéressantes parce qu’elles sont plus prédictives de ce qui se passera dans la « vraie vie », on peut s’appuyer dessus pour faire de la rééducation et de la prise en charge, mais elles sont difficiles à mettre en œuvre. Avec les personnes autistes fortement handicapées, on n’a pas le choix, on ne peut pas les emmener au labo. C’est d’ailleurs pour cela qu’elles sont très peu présentes dans les études. Il faut faire des tâches les plus écologiques possibles. Ils nous confrontent aux limites de nos méthodes, ils nous obligent à repenser toute notre méthodologie. De manière générale, l’autisme nous pousse à nos limites, et pas seulement nos limites méthodologiques : cela nous oblige à nous demander pourquoi on utilise des mots, cela nous confronte à nos limites d’êtres humains à de nombreux niveaux.
What role do emotions play when it comes to identifying skills? Are these two areas separate?
Emotions and cognitive functioning are not separate. This is what is referred to as “hot cognition” and “cold cognition,” but we realize that no cognitive function is separate from emotions. Attention span obviously depends on the emotions involved. If we’re indifferent to what’s happening, we’ll have a hard time sustaining our attention, whereas if we’re in mortal danger or if the love of our life is standing right in front of us, we’ll be hyper-alert! Frontal lobe functions, which are considered a form of “very cold” cognition, cannot operate separately from emotions—and even if we wanted to prove that they do function separately, we’d have to find an individual without emotions, which does not exist. We are never without emotions. Therefore, the hypothesis of a “
” brain that functions without emotions makes no sense. That said, the issue of emotions in people with autism presents a number of
specific challenges. It’s entirely conceivable that the range and intensity of the emotions experienced are very different. I base this assertion primarily on personal accounts and autobiographies; there isn’t much on this subject in the scientific literature. But it so happened that in 2017, I wrote a general-interest article about autistic women for The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/ces-femmes-autistes-qui-signorent-75998), and that article received one million views—which is highly unusual: typically, such articles get between ten thousand and twenty thousand views. And I received a flood of emails and unsolicited messages from people who needed to share their stories. Some were quite far-fetched, but they were all interesting: people who thought they were autistic but weren’t, people who were autistic
but couldn’t bring themselves to admit it, very personal messages; so I gained a certain level of trust from the autistic community that led people to come forward and share their stories—and to tell me how they feel, perhaps more readily than they would with a researcher who views autism as a deficit. So my intuition is that the emotional spectrum is different: they will react much more strongly to things that neurotypical people consider unimportant, and will be very indifferent to things that neurotypical people consider important. This applies to those who are in touch with their emotions. But half of autistic people suffer from what is called alexithymia. This is the inability to identify one’s own emotions (this inability can also exist outside of autism, but it is very common among people on the autism spectrum). The person may be very angry or very sad—it’s obvious—but they say they feel nothing. This can fuel the idea that people on the autism spectrum have no emotions. In fact, many of them do not have access to their emotions, and those who do may not necessarily experience emotions in the same ways we do—and conversely, they may experience strong emotions in situations where it is unusual for us, so we might describe this not as emotions but as a meltdown or a behavioral issue. All of this, of course, complicates communication between autistic and non-autistic people.
The third factor, which further complicates matters, is that the range of facial expressions used to convey emotions differs. The faces of autistic people do not express emotions in the same way as those of non-autistic people. Consequently, an autistic person will have difficulty identifying emotions in a non-autistic person, and vice versa. This makes it difficult to establish a successful dialogue.
With OMNI, will the use of emotion—and possibly musical emotion—help identify cognitive abilities?
I don’t know if you can say that. It might not be a question, just as it might not be relevant to ask whether or not it’s music. Or perhaps there’s an emotion involved—the pleasure of using the OMNI. I think it’s a safe assumption to say that the person using the OMNI derives pleasure from it and has a motivation to return to it. I’d speculated that it generates a state of psychological flow, of rapture, of being swept up in one’s own creation. But I don’t know if it should be viewed as an educational tool. Rather, it’s about providing access to an experience that, in and of itself, is formative… It would be a mistake to try to turn it into a formula. In fact, the people who lead the workshops are very careful not to let facilitators reduce the OMNI to a set of step-by-step instructions. We don’t use it to produce a specific effect or achieve a goal. We offer an experience.
I was just wondering if OMNI plays a role for people who have trouble communicating with the outside world?
You raise the issue of communication among people with autism, which is very important. This topic is certainly set to evolve significantly in the coming years. There’s still a common perception that communication among people with autism is difficult, but I’m not sure it’s accurate to put it that way. Obviously, when you don’t speak, it’s complicated to communicate. But communication is always a two-way street.
s have just as much difficulty communicating with autistic people as autistic people have communicating with neurotypical s. The autistic person has a disability, so the extra effort should really come from the non-disabled person, but that’s rarely the case. I came across some notes I took about a dozen years ago, when I first became interested in autism. I was watching videos on neuropsychology, and I was struck by the fact that the child was expressing things through body language, yet the adult didn’t notice because they were focused on verbal language and ignored the body language. And since the child doesn’t respond with verbal language—which is difficult for them—the adult assumes they haven’t responded at all.
But the child did respond! In a situation like this, you really have to wonder who has the communication problem. The thing is, what’s communicated through nonverbal channels lies outside the realm of words; it’s an area we have little mastery over. We must therefore be willing to set aside the forms of communication with which we are very familiar—and through which we are effective. Nonverbal communication requires a certain willingness to let go. But the more time I spend with people on the autism spectrum, the more I realize that there is indeed a form of communication—one I cannot describe because it lies beyond words—but which is undeniab
. So I wouldn’t call it a communication problem; rather, it’s a matter of different forms of communication. And OMNI can serve as a bridge between our form of communication—which is very word-centered—and forms of communication that don’t rely on words but are by no means childish (babies also don’t use words, but that’s something else entirely).
I play the harp, and for me, physical contact with the vibrating material is essential. So an instrument where you don’t produce sound with your hands feels very distant to me. I can see that you can stand on the OMNI, that there’s a different relationship with the instrument, but I wonder how you can do without that contact with the resonating body as it vibrates.
Patrice Moullet’s other instruments are different. The STI (Surface Triangulaire Inclinée) is played with the feet—you have to tap each note with your foot—and on my favorite, the Stretch Machine, you pull the strings, so there’s a haptic effect; there’s resistance, and the harder you pull, the more resistance there is—you play with your whole body. The OMNI is the only one that doesn’t provide haptic feedback. It’s like electronic music, with that same slightly detached feel from the body. But what you don’t see in the pictures of the OMNI is the material of the keys—they’re made of enameled metal. The enamel feels wonderful—cold and smooth at first, but it warms up very quickly under your fingers. True, there’s no vibrational feedback, nor the sensation of pressing something down, but it’s still more physical than simply tapping keys on a screen, because the texture of the enamel plays a role in the pleasure of using the instrument.
What is the current status of research on OMNI?
We conducted an initial round of data collection as part of the Fractales project at the Maison des Metallos (11th arrondissement, Paris) in 2016, where we held numerous workshops with people with disabilities. We took great care to operate in compliance with regulatory requirements—I’m very mindful of this, as the data is extremely sensitive, involving medical diagnoses of minors or individuals under legal guardianship. Therefore, this data is not intended for publication but rather to assess the project’s feasibility and develop protocols that are as environmentally friendly as possible. The next step is to find collaborative partners who can help support funding applications and expand the scope of research beyond neuropsychology. I need to reach out to people who have the expertise, knowledge, and skills that I lack. Ultimately, I believe OMNI could help resolve significant scientific questions, particularly regarding situated cognition. I see a bright future for OMNI as a scientific tool.
- Dawson, M., Soulières, I., Gernsbacher, M. A., & Mottron, L. “The Level and Nature of
Autistic Intelligence.” *Psychol Sci* 18, 657–662 (2007). - Russell, G. et al. Selection bias regarding intellectual ability in autism research: a cross-sectional
review and meta-analysis. Mol Autism 10, 9 (2019).
