[Music]
the reality is a central theme this
evening but we should rather say your
reality because in this room each
of you has a perception that is
unique because his brain is unique in
as a neuroscientist I’m going to
give some elements to help you
to understand how your brain
perceives its environment but also
how does an autistic person perceive the
his then let’s start with an example I
will show you an image and you
will simply need to determine what it
represent
good nothing difficult here but you
may not have seen the same thing
that your neighbor given that we can
to see two different animals and
did the researchers showed that
when presenting this image to
children during the easter holidays
so they were more likely to
perceive a rabbit while at the
Toussaint they would rather see there a
duck so this little example enough
simple show us that in the
case where sensory information is
ambiguous like here then our perception
will depend on the context
we will continue with another example
normally we should all be
agree that these two boxes has
and b have the same grid tent and
yet when we put them back in the
context of a chessboard
so these two breaks seems very
different I let you see again
and even while telling you
put away a lot tried it gets
impossible to find the old percept
where the two boxes were identical
actually saw that you know that the shadow of
cylinder of real blacken the case b
so your brain interprets that this
case was white what you got
perceived your perfect is so in fact to
half way between the information received
does your brain project this to
what does he expect in neuroscience his
predictions his expectations is called a
priori and we are constantly in
train to learn and adjust our
priori to form a representation
global world that we employ ourselves
so we have in mind a kind of model
internal that helps us understand our
environment but who goes his own
distort our perceptions to make it
look like what we know
already to describe this phenomenon we speak
of probabilistic or pro brain to whom one
says active pro because your brain is not
not an organ that would passively receive
information flow on the contrary he goes
actively generate predictions for
try to interpret his environment
and anticipate for example there during
that I’m talking to you your brain is in
trying to predict
every word I’m going to pronounce it does
that according to what he learned in
the past so finally we could
to say that we are always slightly
in the future and in the past at once
but rarely really in the present
and his predictions can be sometimes
specify for example you will not have any
difficulties to finish the sentence I
think so I’m thank you but you
would have been probably rather surprised
I finish them by I think so I ski
yes it happens that these predictions are
wrong what will surprise you but
sometimes make you smile or otherwise
rather you are anxious in neuroscience
we talk about prediction error for
describe these discrepancies between
the information received is what your
brain projects what he expects
and thanks to these prediction errors
you will be able to update your
internal model to be adapted to the best
to his environment to your
environment and sometimes it takes a little
long enough to be able to update its
a priori for example I do not know if that
have you ever been surprised by
your own reflection in the mirror
after changing haircuts
just because you did not
not yet accustomed you do not have
still not up to date your internal model
overall a priori its
predictions to help us understand
our environment
but if we have a priori too precise that
can be problematic because if you have
a priori extremely accurate then
these will always be strongly in
shift from information
received in this case the slightest change
the least unforeseen would provoke a strong
prediction error a strong
ra a strong during a harbor and party
surprise
and since we live in a world that
in perpetual change
then we would be somehow
bombarded with prediction error which
would be quite intrusive and
stressing another problematic point
on having a priori very
is that it can hurt the
categorization take the example of a
smile if you have a priori rather
vague of what a wish is to say
just its overall shape then you will have
little difficulty to match
information received with your a priori
so you can categorize it as a
smile and so interpret it while
otherwise you would have a
extremely precise priori then the
shift from information
sensory will be bigger so it will be
more difficult to categorize and so
more generally to be able to categorize
facial expressions
in this case the understanding of
social interactions would be a little
impaired
and what is particularly
interesting is that there is precisely one
disorder in which people have
difficulties in understanding the
social interactions and to manage the
unexpected
these are the disorders of the spectrum of
autism who are officially
characterized by two types of symptoms
the first are difficulties
to understand interactions
social
so that’s going to be for example understanding
facial expressions or second
degree and on this point das it’s
especially autistic children who die
by tendency to interpret everything
first degree so we will understand well
that he can be more than astonished when
we’re talking about taking a look or
give your tongue to the cat
the second type of symptoms it’s going to be
repetitive behaviors so by
example it can be movements of
sway that will invariably be
repeated and narrow interests
in fact it’s just a passion
in which they are often
insurmountable as the tran as
neuroscientist we sought to
to know if these symptoms of autism
could be explained by a
atypical perception in the context of
proactive brain so we have
developed experiments in order to
understand how people
autist are building a priori and
how they emit to date our
experiments have shown that people
autistic can sometimes be built
a priori very precise so
hardly generalizable there is a
example that I give often because
I find it is speaking adult
autistic who explained to me that when we
evokes a smile and well he has in
head the list of all the smiles seen
almost exclusively those of his wife
by the way a little like google
imagery
to caricature and so he does that
rather than just thinking about the image
mean a smile so you will understand
although it will be more difficult for him
to be able to interpret automatically
and quickly facial expressions
our experiments also showed that the
autistic people need a little
more time to be able to
day after him to be able to
readjust and it’s consistent with the fact
that in autism the slightest change
for example a few minutes late
on a train and in France we are served
with that and that’s fine it can be a
real upheaval for them and that’s
also the very nature of the sensations of
sensations in itself that the
often feel unexpected imagine if
every feeling
every sound every movement every smell
was as surprising as the sound that
you just heard the felt
been of course very different if you
wait to hear that sound I’m going
replay now actually in some
so the people who get
would often find bombed
of prediction error because of all
those unforeseen sensations that would lead them
to kinds of sensations
of sensory invasion in this regard a
autistic author named daniel
thanet talk about his daily life in
often explaining the noise was more
impromptu that he was strong it was
especially because I did not expect it
not that it affected me
next step of our research
consisted of understanding on what lies
atypical learning of these a priori
in autism
so we did an experiment
in functional irm which is a method
to obtain a map
activated brain regions during
a task
using this method we were able to
show that in autism a priori
would modulate brain networks
different which would be causing
this perception a typical with all
these results
autism therefore appears as a
perception difference underpinned by
a difference in operation
it seems to me important to
emphasize that autism is a very
brain development disorder
leading to this atypical perception
and so a person is born autistic
it does not become so and surely not to
because of the influence of the sea as one
could sometimes unfortunately read it and
autism is a major topic being
given that one in a hundred people is
autistic who represents 650 thousand
people in France so statistically
it is very likely that some
of you tonight either autistic or that
you knew people with autism
and maybe even without knowing it without
know it because there are forms
more or less visible autism being
given that it is a spectrum of a
continuum
when we talk about autism you think
maybe to film rain man or a kid
lonely who would not speak but he
there are also much less forms
discernable at least seen outside by
example asperger syndrome hours
is a form of autism without disability
intellectual and with a language all to
actually develop julie purchasing particular
characterized by invisible difference because
from the outside we can not surrender
account that the person is autistic himself
to say eventually that she is a little
atypical or reserved
but from the inside
it’s often an intense struggle for
to keep face in our world here a
predictive and where any interaction
social can prove to be a real
test for them in addition to these
symptoms
some people with autism present
particularly abilities
this is the case of the author
daniel thanet who was able to
memorize the first 22 1514
decimal digit of here so bad I
I put that 2000
as I let you imagine more than
ten times that is for him when he
observe these figures he sees rather that
a landscape of color through which
he sails and he can easily
memorize another example this is
stéphane wiltshire an autistic artist
who was able to redraw
especially the city of new york at the
perfection
after having only flown over
helicopter
these two examples are pretty much publicized
so maybe some of you
already know them, but when
even emphasize that all people
autistic do not necessarily have a kind
of ultra spectacular gift and people
often expect it to be a
for example a woman told me what
happened when she learned that she
had an asperger syndrome hours to
the age of 30 and she decided
to announce to one of her friends
so the wonder the living room and she has him
said she had a form of autism
at that moment his coat was absent
moments
then when she came back she had
a box of toothpicks in the hands
at the time it toppled to the ground
by telling him then how many
besides to the question what is your
super powers some people
autistics respond that it’s autism
their super powers
because it offers them perception of the world
very singular and then it is also necessary
keep in mind that people
autistic are considered
different
simply because they are the
minority they are the 1%
so people with autism have had
the idea of presenting the syndrome
neurotypical to define us who
are not autistic who allows to
change a little perspective so
it is an incurable disorder that
touch 99% of the population is yet
no research on the subject and who
is characterized by an excessive need
of social relations by use
frequent of the lie by an obsession
for compliance all and even by one
total disinterest for trains as
as a researcher we focus
often about the symptoms on the
difficulties that people with autism
reports because we hope our
research will help to find
how to make situations
daily – scary for them but
all hours of past discussions
with autistic adults or also
showed a lot of positive aspects and
how much we can learn
of them tonight I often talked about
brain but these are above all of course
individuals people with
which I work and who deserves
that we fully accept their
singularity
awareness of autism seems to me
therefore essential for us to consider
autism as a difference and not
a disability autistic people
obviously have human qualities and
professional but many adults
still can not access the
world of work come sometimes
really over- graduated and a lot of
young people are still struggling to have
access to education
the still very stigmatizing image of
autism makes that some people
having been diagnosed
in adulthood still have not dared the
tell their parents lest it be
too much harm in their image or
other all this will therefore strengthen their
feeling of isolation is probably linked
at the fact that nearly 70% of adults
autistic people declare depressions then
through adaptation efforts and
tolerance
we could also probably
helped to reduce the handicap
felt by these people more
overall I think he
belongs one accept some
neuro diversity form the idea that
different modes of operation
can coexist he get rich
mutually
we could take that diversity
as an opportunity to consider
new ways to understand the
world
and then we saw that our brain
is able to update his
priori
so let’s do that for
change of focus on autism
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
the reality is a central theme this
evening but we should rather say your
reality because in this room each
of you has a perception that is
unique because his brain is unique in
as a neuroscientist I’m going to
give some elements to help you
to understand how your brain
perceives its environment but also
how does an autistic person perceive the
his then let’s start with an example I
will show you an image and you
will simply need to determine what it
represent
good nothing difficult here but you
may not have seen the same thing
that your neighbor given that we can
to see two different animals and
did the researchers showed that
when presenting this image to
children during the easter holidays
so they were more likely to
perceive a rabbit while at the
Toussaint they would rather see there a
duck so this little example enough
simple show us that in the
case where sensory information is
ambiguous like here then our perception
will depend on the context
we will continue with another example
normally we should all be
agree that these two boxes has
and b have the same grid tent and
yet when we put them back in the
context of a chessboard
so these two breaks seems very
different I let you see again
and even while telling you
put away a lot tried it gets
impossible to find the old percept
where the two boxes were identical
actually saw that you know that the shadow of
cylinder of real blacken the case b
so your brain interprets that this
case was white what you got
perceived your perfect is so in fact to
half way between the information received
does your brain project this to
what does he expect in neuroscience his
predictions his expectations is called a
priori and we are constantly in
train to learn and adjust our
priori to form a representation
global world that we employ ourselves
so we have in mind a kind of model
internal that helps us understand our
environment but who goes his own
distort our perceptions to make it
look like what we know
already to describe this phenomenon we speak
of probabilistic or pro brain to whom one
says active pro because your brain is not
not an organ that would passively receive
information flow on the contrary he goes
actively generate predictions for
try to interpret his environment
and anticipate for example there during
that I’m talking to you your brain is in
trying to predict
every word I’m going to pronounce it does
that according to what he learned in
the past so finally we could
to say that we are always slightly
in the future and in the past at once
but rarely really in the present
and his predictions can be sometimes
specify for example you will not have any
difficulties to finish the sentence I
think so I’m thank you but you
would have been probably rather surprised
I finish them by I think so I ski
yes it happens that these predictions are
wrong what will surprise you but
sometimes make you smile or otherwise
rather you are anxious in neuroscience
we talk about prediction error for
describe these discrepancies between
the information received is what your
brain projects what he expects
and thanks to these prediction errors
you will be able to update your
internal model to be adapted to the best
to his environment to your
environment and sometimes it takes a little
long enough to be able to update its
a priori for example I do not know if that
have you ever been surprised by
your own reflection in the mirror
after changing haircuts
just because you did not
not yet accustomed you do not have
still not up to date your internal model
overall a priori its
predictions to help us understand
our environment
but if we have a priori too precise that
can be problematic because if you have
a priori extremely accurate then
these will always be strongly in
shift from information
received in this case the slightest change
the least unforeseen would provoke a strong
prediction error a strong
ra a strong during a harbor and party
surprise
and since we live in a world that
in perpetual change
then we would be somehow
bombarded with prediction error which
would be quite intrusive and
stressing another problematic point
on having a priori very
is that it can hurt the
categorization take the example of a
smile if you have a priori rather
vague of what a wish is to say
just its overall shape then you will have
little difficulty to match
information received with your a priori
so you can categorize it as a
smile and so interpret it while
otherwise you would have a
extremely precise priori then the
shift from information
sensory will be bigger so it will be
more difficult to categorize and so
more generally to be able to categorize
facial expressions
in this case the understanding of
social interactions would be a little
impaired
and what is particularly
interesting is that there is precisely one
disorder in which people have
difficulties in understanding the
social interactions and to manage the
unexpected
these are the disorders of the spectrum of
autism who are officially
characterized by two types of symptoms
the first are difficulties
to understand interactions
social
so that’s going to be for example understanding
facial expressions or second
degree and on this point das it’s
especially autistic children who die
by tendency to interpret everything
first degree so we will understand well
that he can be more than astonished when
we’re talking about taking a look or
give your tongue to the cat
the second type of symptoms it’s going to be
repetitive behaviors so by
example it can be movements of
sway that will invariably be
repeated and narrow interests
in fact it’s just a passion
in which they are often
insurmountable as the tran as
neuroscientist we sought to
to know if these symptoms of autism
could be explained by a
atypical perception in the context of
proactive brain so we have
developed experiments in order to
understand how people
autist are building a priori and
how they emit to date our
experiments have shown that people
autistic can sometimes be built
a priori very precise so
hardly generalizable there is a
example that I give often because
I find it is speaking adult
autistic who explained to me that when we
evokes a smile and well he has in
head the list of all the smiles seen
almost exclusively those of his wife
by the way a little like google
imagery
to caricature and so he does that
rather than just thinking about the image
mean a smile so you will understand
although it will be more difficult for him
to be able to interpret automatically
and quickly facial expressions
our experiments also showed that the
autistic people need a little
more time to be able to
day after him to be able to
readjust and it’s consistent with the fact
that in autism the slightest change
for example a few minutes late
on a train and in France we are served
with that and that’s fine it can be a
real upheaval for them and that’s
also the very nature of the sensations of
sensations in itself that the
often feel unexpected imagine if
every feeling
every sound every movement every smell
was as surprising as the sound that
you just heard the felt
been of course very different if you
wait to hear that sound I’m going
replay now actually in some
so the people who get
would often find bombed
of prediction error because of all
those unforeseen sensations that would lead them
to kinds of sensations
of sensory invasion in this regard a
autistic author named daniel
thanet talk about his daily life in
often explaining the noise was more
impromptu that he was strong it was
especially because I did not expect it
not that it affected me
next step of our research
consisted of understanding on what lies
atypical learning of these a priori
in autism
so we did an experiment
in functional irm which is a method
to obtain a map
activated brain regions during
a task
using this method we were able to
show that in autism a priori
would modulate brain networks
different which would be causing
this perception a typical with all
these results
autism therefore appears as a
perception difference underpinned by
a difference in operation
it seems to me important to
emphasize that autism is a very
brain development disorder
leading to this atypical perception
and so a person is born autistic
it does not become so and surely not to
because of the influence of the sea as one
could sometimes unfortunately read it and
autism is a major topic being
given that one in a hundred people is
autistic who represents 650 thousand
people in France so statistically
it is very likely that some
of you tonight either autistic or that
you knew people with autism
and maybe even without knowing it without
know it because there are forms
more or less visible autism being
given that it is a spectrum of a
continuum
when we talk about autism you think
maybe to film rain man or a kid
lonely who would not speak but he
there are also much less forms
discernable at least seen outside by
example asperger syndrome hours
is a form of autism without disability
intellectual and with a language all to
actually develop julie purchasing particular
characterized by invisible difference because
from the outside we can not surrender
account that the person is autistic himself
to say eventually that she is a little
atypical or reserved
but from the inside
it’s often an intense struggle for
to keep face in our world here a
predictive and where any interaction
social can prove to be a real
test for them in addition to these
symptoms
some people with autism present
particularly abilities
this is the case of the author
daniel thanet who was able to
memorize the first 22 1514
decimal digit of here so bad I
I put that 2000
as I let you imagine more than
ten times that is for him when he
observe these figures he sees rather that
a landscape of color through which
he sails and he can easily
memorize another example this is
stéphane wiltshire an autistic artist
who was able to redraw
especially the city of new york at the
perfection
after having only flown over
helicopter
these two examples are pretty much publicized
so maybe some of you
already know them, but when
even emphasize that all people
autistic do not necessarily have a kind
of ultra spectacular gift and people
often expect it to be a
for example a woman told me what
happened when she learned that she
had an asperger syndrome hours to
the age of 30 and she decided
to announce to one of her friends
so the wonder the living room and she has him
said she had a form of autism
at that moment his coat was absent
moments
then when she came back she had
a box of toothpicks in the hands
at the time it toppled to the ground
by telling him then how many
besides to the question what is your
super powers some people
autistics respond that it’s autism
their super powers
because it offers them perception of the world
very singular and then it is also necessary
keep in mind that people
autistic are considered
different
simply because they are the
minority they are the 1%
so people with autism have had
the idea of presenting the syndrome
neurotypical to define us who
are not autistic who allows to
change a little perspective so
it is an incurable disorder that
touch 99% of the population is yet
no research on the subject and who
is characterized by an excessive need
of social relations by use
frequent of the lie by an obsession
for compliance all and even by one
total disinterest for trains as
as a researcher we focus
often about the symptoms on the
difficulties that people with autism
reports because we hope our
research will help to find
how to make situations
daily – scary for them but
all hours of past discussions
with autistic adults or also
showed a lot of positive aspects and
how much we can learn
of them tonight I often talked about
brain but these are above all of course
individuals people with
which I work and who deserves
that we fully accept their
singularity
awareness of autism seems to me
therefore essential for us to consider
autism as a difference and not
a disability autistic people
obviously have human qualities and
professional but many adults
still can not access the
world of work come sometimes
really over- graduated and a lot of
young people are still struggling to have
access to education
the still very stigmatizing image of
autism makes that some people
having been diagnosed
in adulthood still have not dared the
tell their parents lest it be
too much harm in their image or
other all this will therefore strengthen their
feeling of isolation is probably linked
at the fact that nearly 70% of adults
autistic people declare depressions then
through adaptation efforts and
tolerance
we could also probably
helped to reduce the handicap
felt by these people more
overall I think he
belongs one accept some
neuro diversity form the idea that
different modes of operation
can coexist he get rich
mutually
we could take that diversity
as an opportunity to consider
new ways to understand the
world
and then we saw that our brain
is able to update his
priori
so let’s do that for
change of focus on autism
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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