第十三屆 圖畫學習對訊息整合能力發展之影響：以威廉氏症候群為例

Picture-Learning on the Development of Information Integration in People with Williams Syndrome

許靜芬1*  Ching-fen Hsu1*
1華梵大學外國語文學系
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Huafan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Background and Purpose: People with Williams syndrome (WS) are characterized as uneven cognitive profile in possessing strong language and weak visuospatial ability. The weak visual perceptual cognitive ability was evidenced by detail-focused information processing from block design test and visuomotor integration task. Cumulating evidence has gradually challenged the concept of strong language ability in terms of semantic integration. It was observed that people with WS impaired in proposition integration with auditory presentation in Chinese (Hsu et al., 2007; Hsu and Tzeng, 2010). This impairment was later referred as weak contextual effect. However, in this study we explored the effect with pictures with a hope to see intact information integration ability of people with WS as people with autism spectrum disorders. Methods: Two conditions of pictures in congruence and incongruence were presented to participants with WS and the age-matched healthy controls chronologically (CA-matched) and mentally (MA-matched). In each condition, a background scene picture was presented before a target object picture. Participants were asked to make judgment of appropriateness to each pair of pictures in accordance with its congruence (e.g., a swimming pool vs. a pair of goggles) or incongruence (e.g., a fast food store vs. a watermelon). Results: A congruence effect of faster responses to the congruent condition compared to the incongruent condition was observed in the participants with WS and the healthy controls. No interaction of condition and group was found, suggesting that our clinical group performed the same pattern as the healthy controls. Conclusions: Contextual effect is not absolutely weak in people with WS. With more concrete and transparent stimuli such as pictures, people with WS show normal-like integration ability of contextual information. With this finding in mind, we propose that picture-learning from early childhood may benefit cognitive development of information integration in people with developmental disabilities.

Keywords: picture-learning, information integration, developmental disabilities, Williams syndrome