Objectives: To compare recall and recognition of unrelated word pairs in high-functioning adults with ASD and typical comparison participants.
Methods: Groups of about 16 adults with ASD and verbal ability matched typical individuals were shown lists of 12 (Experiment 1) or 16 (Experiment 2) pairs of weakly-associated words and asked to try to remember as many of the pairs as they could. At test, in Experiment 1, they were asked to recall as many of the pairs as they could. In Experiment 2, they were presented with cards each bearing one studied word, together with 16 lure cards and asked to make up as many of the studied pairs as they could.
Results: In the recall test, ASD participants could recall 58% of the word pairs compared to a recall rate of 80% by the comparison group, a difference that was significant (p<.05). By contrast, the correct pair recognition in the ASD group was not significantly different from that of the comparison group (45% vs 42%).
Conclusions: The findings extend the Task Support Hypothesis of memory in ASD to the recall of episodically-defined pairings of stimuli and supports the view put forward by Bowler et al. (2011) that atypical memory performance in ASD is a reflection of relational binding difficulties.
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