Radio Interview & Press Release on Autism

- Press play above to hear an interview that I did with KFWB news radio about autism.

- This is the USC issued press release for the article:


Autism May Have Had Advantages in Human’s Hunter-Gatherer Past, Paper in Evolutionary Psychology Finds

Los Angeles, CA. A brain science researcher at the University of Southern California has concluded that the autism spectrum may represent, not disease, but an ancient way of life for a minority of ancestral humans. The article, published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, proposes that some of the genes contributing to autism were selected and maintained because they facilitated solitary subsistence during prehistoric times.Individuals on the autism spectrum are described as having had the potential to be self-sufficient and capable foragers in environments marked by diminished social contact.In other words, these individuals, unlike neurotypical humans, would not have been obligately social and would have been predisposed toward taking up a relatively solitary lifestyle. In fact, certain psychological characteristics of autism are taken as a suite of cognitive adaptations that would have facilitated lone foraging.

People with autism have difficulty interacting socially, preferring to focus on narrow fields of interest. Reser speculates that, in the ancestral past, the penchant for obsessive, repetitive activities would have been focused by hunger and thirst towards the learning and refinement of hunting and gathering skills. Today, autistic children are fed by their parents and so hunger does not actuate or guide their interests and activities. Because modern children with autism are not able to forage or to watch their parents forage, and because they can obtain food free of effort, their interests are redirected toward salient, nonsocial activities; some classic examples being: stacking blocks, flipping light switches, lining toys up in rows, playing with running water, chasing vacuum cleaners, and collecting bottle tops.

A popular new perspective on autism, frequently referred to as the “autism advantage,” purports that unlike mental retardation, autism has compensating benefits including increased abilities for spatial intelligence, concentration and certain forms of attention and memory. A great deal of new research supports this line of reasoning by illustrating that although individuals have trouble with social cognition, their other cognitive abilities are largely intact. Until now though, very little attention has been given to how autism’s advantages may have played a role during human prehistory.

Reser compares the behavior of individuals on the autism spectrum with the behavior of other solitary foraging animals including orangutans and montane voles. Reser points out that like dogs, some animals are obligately social whereas others, like cats, can transition between social and solitary lifestyles. He emphasizes that individuals on the autism spectrum share a variety of behavioral traits with solitary species.  Both are low on measures of gregariousness, socialization, direct gazing, eye contact, facial expression, facial recognition, emotional engagement, affiliative need and other social behaviors. Despite the fact that solitary animals are low on these measures, they do not have difficulty learning the behaviors they need to survive. It may have been the same for individuals with autism.

In prehistoric times group size may have fluctuated greatly and inconsistencies in the ways that natural selection influenced the social abilities of humans may well be responsible for the large variation in social abilities seen in human populations.

“Conceptualizing the autism spectrum in terms of natural selection & behavioral ecology: The solitary forager hypothesis,” is published in Evolutionary Psychology and is available at:

http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP09207238.pdf

Eddie North-Hager / Associate Director of Media Relations /  University of Southern California

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- Below are some recent posts about the article, including one by Science Daily. The one at care2.com is very interesting to me. It is written by a doctor who is the mother of a child with autism and it makes several great points.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110603122849.htm

http://www.care2.com/causes/health-policy/blog/the-autism-advantage

http://truthdive.com/2011/06/06/Autism-may-have-played-important-role-in-human-s-hunter-gatherer-past.html

http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/newsroom/news_release.php?id=2419

The “Solitary Forager” Hypothesis of Autism: www.solitaryforager.com

I created a new web page recently to post my “theory of autism.” The theory attempts to explain why autism exists by elucidating its evolutionary history. Consistent with Simon Baron-Cohen’s systemizing theory of autism and with Temple Grandin’s positions, I see most autistic individuals as intelligent and autism as having compensatory advantages. Clearly, sometimes autism is accompanied by disease states, but the psychological "symptoms" of autism are seen here as attributes that would have benefitted a solitary forager (see the table at the bottom).


"To the extent that neurotypical individuals can be thought of as social foragers, autistic individuals can be thought of as solitary foragers."


There has been a lot of recent speculation and controversy over autism and what its existence "means.” A number of theoretical articles have been written on the subject such as the “Neanderthal theory of autism,” the “neoteny theory of autism,” the “extreme male brain theory,” the “imprinted brain theory” and the argument that autism is the “next stage in human evolution.” These are all interesting interpretations some of which may have some explanatory utility. I think that the “solitary forager hypothesis,” however; explains autism from the perspective of natural history.


Please take a look at:  www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP09207238.pdf


You can also find an early and unabbreviated version here: http://www.solitaryforager.com/
Abstract:This article reviews etiological and comparative evidence supporting the hypothesis that some heritable genes associated with the autism spectrum were naturally selected and represent the adaptive benefits of being cognitively suited for solitary foraging. The systemizing theory of autism is extended here and people on the autism spectrum are conceptualized as ecologically competent individuals that could have been adept at learning and implementing hunting and gathering skills in the ancestral environment. Upon independence from their mothers, young autistic individuals may have been psychologically predisposed toward a different life-history strategy, common among mammals and even some primates, to hunt and gather primarily on their own. Many of the behavioral and cognitive tendencies that autistic individuals exhibit are viewed here as adaptations that would have complemented a solitary lifestyle. For example, the obsessive, repetitive and systemizing tendencies in autism, which can be mistakenly applied toward activities such as block stacking today, may have been focused by hunger and thirst toward successful food procurement in the ancestral past. 


Individuals on the autism spectrum share a variety of behavioral traits with solitary species. Both solitary mammals and autistic individuals are low on measures of gregariousness, socialization, direct gazing, eye contact, facial expression, emotional engagement, affiliative need and other social behaviors. The evolution of the neurological tendencies in solitary species that predispose them toward being introverted and reclusive may hold important clues for the evolution of the autism spectrum and the natural selection of autism genes. Solitary animals are thought to eschew social contact as part of a foraging strategy often due to scarcity and wide dispersal of food in their native environments. Similarly, it is known that, due to frequent and prolonged dry spells, the human ancestral environment was often nutritionally scarce as well, and this may have driven human parties to periodically disband. Inconsistencies in group size must have led to inconsistencies in the manner in which natural selection fashioned the social minds of humans, which in turn may well be responsible for the large variation in social abilities seen in human populations. This article emphasizes that individuals on the autism spectrum may have only been partially solitary, that natural selection may have only favored subclinical autistic traits and that the most severe cases of autism may be due to assortative mating. This solitary forager hypothesis of autism is explored in the context of
anthropology, comparative neuroscience, epidemiology, evolutionary biology, neuroethology, and primatology.

 

Table 1: Behavior in autism, then and now

Trait or Symptom	Psychological  Consequences	Implications for Moderns	Implications for Solitary Foragers
High systemizing ability	A tendency to systematically explore the laws governing nonsocial processes	Eccentric or narrow but substantial knowledge and skills	An impetus guiding the acquisition of food procurement techniques
Obsessive, repetitious tendencies	Perseveration in behavior and thought	Repetitious play and need for sameness	Order, structure and autonomous self-regulation
Gaze aversion and absence of shared eye contact	Minimal eye contact and diminished attention to the faces of others	Unfortunate social hurdle	Instinctually prepared not to challenge or provoke conspecifics
Low oxytocin	Reduced social interest, learning and expressiveness	Unfortunately hindered social cognition	Programmed for a socially impoverished environment
Anomalies in anterior cingulate cortex, orbito and medial frontal cortex	Reduced social learning, capacity for empathy and affiliative need	Hindered social integration	Decreased reliance on others
Amygdala hyperactivity	Potentiation of innate and conditioned fears	Excessive anxiety and withdrawal from social world	Healthy caution, and fear of unfamiliar conspecifics
Hippocampal hyperactivity	Hyperaccessibility of contextual and episodic information	Proficiency with spatial tasks and contextual memory	Skill in tests of spatial intelligence