Autistic people are better at perceiving details. Major theories explain this in terms of bottom-up sensory mechanisms or in terms of top-down cognitive biases. Recently, it has become possible to link these theories within a common framework. This framework assumes that perception is implicit neural inference, combining sensory evidence with…

The case study of Nadia, an autistic child, documents the phenomenally accurate drawings she made. Nadia's precocious drawing capacity raises questions about the drawing hypothesis adhered to by F. Goodenough and D. B. Harris and Gestalt theories of perception and representation. The argument is made that Nadia drew realistically because she…