China and Brazil in African agriculture

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>These data are collected from studies looking at Chinese training courses for African officials, Chinese trade in agricultural commodities with Africa, and registered Chinese investments in Africa. These formed an important contextualisation of our research in the four case study countries which we then built upon in our fieldwork. Those final analyses and interpretations of the data are also included as data here in the form of working papers. Based on qualitative research methods, they present the reality on the ground which can often be quite different to the image presented by the raw figures, often published by government departments.<p>Project description:</p>The “China and Brazil in African Agriculture” (CBAA) project will explore the new development cooperation engagements in agriculture across four African countries. The project will examine the politics of aid and investment policy in China and Brazil, exploring how understandings of agricultural development are translated in aid and investment projects. The project will be carried out through an innovative international partnership connecting researchers from institutions in the UK and Africa, already linked through the IDS-led Future Agricultures Consortium, with colleagues from China and Brazil. The research will begin with a mapping phase that will generate a geo-referenced database of Chinese and Brazilian agricultural development cooperation projects in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. This will be followed by in-depth case studies of a sample of these projects, examining the ways in which experience and expertise from China and Brazil engage with the realities of African agriculture and the perspectives of African scientists and farmers. Comparative analysis across projects, countries and types of intervention will address the question of whether a new paradigm of development cooperation is emerging, and assess the implications for the future of aid and investment policy

Labour outmigration, agricultural productivity and food security, Wave 1, Part 1 - Household agriculture and migration survey

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>Using the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) existing surveys and national surveys (Demographic Health Survey and Nepal Living Standard Survey), we designed a 43-minute Household Agriculture and Migration Survey. This survey includes information on household agricultural practices, including crop production and farm technology use, wealth, assets, income, consumption, food security and information about each household member currently away from home, and remittances received by the household. In addition, an Agriculture and Remittance Calendar was designed to collect retrospective data on farming/non-farming status, crop production, land under cultivation, farm technology use, migration and remittances from 2006 through July 2015 matching with the agricultural production data collection in 2006. This draft survey was rigorously pre-tested in 50 households before data collection was launched. The first wave of the survey was administered to 2,255 households residing within 151 CVFS sample neighborhoods July 15, 2015 through December 20, 2015. Data collection for the first wave is complete with a response rate of 98.2%. These data are part of the Labour Outmigration, Agricultural Productivity and Food Security project data collection, which also includes the Women's Time Use Survey data(see Related Resources). Households that participated include the women surveyed in the related data collection. Data from additional waves of the Household Agriculture and Migration Survey will be deposited after data collection is completed. <p>Project description:</p>We propose to investigate the consequences of labour outmigration on agricultural productivity in a poor agricultural country persistently facing food security problems. We aim to answer three high-priority scientific and policy questions: To what extent (a) Does labour outmigration influence (i) agricultural productivity, (ii) women's participation in farming, and (iii) exit from farming? (b) Do remittances influence (i) farm technology use, (ii) women's participation in farming, and (iii) exit from farming? (c) Do farm technology use and exit from farming influence subsequent outmigration? With an estimated 214 million people l--mostly from poor agricultural regions to more industrialized countries-international migration is a key concern in scholarly and policy arenas. This unprecedented phenomenon has wide-ranging consequences both for migrant-sending and receiving locations. This study focuses on one specific, but crucial consequence - the impact of labour outmigration on agricultural productivity in migrant-sending areas. As the agriculture productivity in poor subsistence economies is closely connected with one of the world's epidemic problems: food security. FAO estimated about 870 million people were undernourished in the period 2010-12. The vast majority of these - 852 million live in developing countries. Thus, increased agricultural productivity in poor countries is a key tool for alleviating this problem. This proposed project aims to better understand the relationship between labour outmigration and agriculture, providing crucial information for scientific and policy development of food security concerns. Understanding the link between outmigration and agriculture is complicated by the fact that migration does not happen randomly. Additionally, changes in agricultural practices and migration are likely to influence each other. Thus, the empirical demands for adjudicating potential reciprocal relationships are high, limiting the ability of previous research to speak to these questions. To address this complication, we will leverage the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS), a case control comparison design at the community level with a 15-year panel study of a stratified systematic sample of communities, households, and individuals in Nepal. This unusual panel study enables us to address the non-random selection of individuals into migration. Furthermore, the case control design is particularly powerful for controlling macro-level effects (e.g. climate, prices, and policies) to detect the effect of change and variation in the phenomena of interest: farm labour loss, remittances, farm technology use, agricultural productivity, and women's participation in farming. Despite the wealth of panel data, answering our specific questions requires a modest level of new data collection. Our proposed panel measurement will involve multi-mode mixed methods data collection with appropriate temporal order and timing precision necessary to assess the relationships31. This study will generate high quality scientific outcomes that will be widely disseminated around the world. These outcomes are (i) comprehensive panel data with potential to address perplexing methodological problems; and (ii) empirical evidence of the consequences of labour outmigration, agricultural productivity, and its interplay with gender. First, the data will be made available through ICPSR and UK Data Service and publications through websites will be provided to broader audiences. Second, the findings will be disseminated among the scientific communities through presentations at national and international conferences and publication of scientific articles, research briefs, and policy briefs. Finally, our capacity building training will also enhance scientific and analytical capacity of faculty and scientists of host country institutions (AFU, NARC and others)

The international maritime labour market in Europe (1650-1815) - Relational database

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>When a Royal Navy vessel or a private man-of-war captured an enemy ship, a court needed to establish whether the vessel was in fact a lawful prize: in other words whether the ship, crew or cargo belonged to an enemy state. To determine this, crew members were cross-examined (if necessary with the help of a sworn-in interpreter) about all matters relating to the ownership of the ship and its cargo. Commonly, three crew members were questioned, usually a cross section of the ranks aboard. From these interrogations, we have created a database, containing all the information required by the interrogation rubric and therefore consistently present in the interrogations.The database comprises two tables, one of which deal with information about the ship, such as geographical markers of its ports of origin and destination, its tonnage, the number of nationalities aboard and information about its owner. This is linked to information about the crew, since there was normally more than one crew member interrogated per vessel. The crew table includes demographic information about the individual interrogated, an indicator of his literacy, his rank and the length and nature of his relationship with the master of the vessel

Mapping urban energy landscapes - Four case studies

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>This data collection includes a heterogeneous set of qualitative data which was collected to characterise the urban energy landscape in four cities: Bengaluru, India; Hong Kong, PR of China; Concepcion, Chile; and Maputo, Mozambique. Each case study contains data obtained by different methods including different types of semi-structured interviews, workshop transcripts, and observations. A report summarises the contents of the data for each case study. The case studies have supported a range of publications including publications about independent case studies; and publications that present a comparative analysis of the cases. <p>Project description:</p>Mapping Urban Energy Landscapes (MUEL) studies humanity's potential to achieve low carbon, socially just cities in rapidly urbanising areas in the global south. Achieving low carbon, socially just cities will require a spatial, socio-economic and political transformation. This transformation will depend on our ability to find low carbon development pathways for urban energy systems

Cross-cultural differences in biased cognition - Pilot task data

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>This data collection consists of pilot data measuring task equivalence for measures of attention and interpretation bias. Congruent Mandarin and English emotional Stroop, attention probe (both measuring attention bias) and similarity ratings task and scrambled sentence task (both measuring interpretation bias) were developed using back-translation and decentering procedures. Tasks were then completed by 47 bilingual Mandarin-English speakers. Presented are data detailing personal characteristics, task scores and bias scores.<p>Project description:</p>The way in which we process information in the world around us has a significant effect on our health and well being. For example, some people are more prone than others to notice potential dangers, to remember bad things from the past and assume the worst, when the meaning of an event or comment is uncertain. These tendencies are called negative cognitive biases and can lead to low mood and poor quality of life. They also make people vulnerable to mental illnesses. In contrast, those with positive cognitive biases tend to function well and remain healthy. To date most of this work has been conducted on white, western populations and we do not know whether similar cognitive biases exist in Eastern cultures. This project will examine cognitive biases in Eastern (Hong Kong nationals ) and Western (UK nationals) people to see whether there are any differences between the two. It will also examine what happens to cognitive biases when someone migrates to a different culture. This will tell us whether influences from the society and culture around us have any effect on our cognitive biases. Finally the project will consider how much our own cognitive biases are inherited from our parents. Together these results will tell us whether the known good and bad effects of cognitive biases apply to non Western cultural groups as well, and how much cognitive biases are decided by our genes or our environment

The relational body - Part 3: Shared body representations between a mother and infant

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>This data set contains data collected from 21 infants and their mothers, using behavioural and physiological measurement. The experiment aimed to investigate shared body representations between a mother and her infant, and consisted of two main tasks. The first, the Mother-Infant Bodily Overlap (MIBO) task, was designed to measure the extent to which an infant ‘shared’ in the tactile experiences of their mother. The task carried out with the infants took the form of a preferential looking paradigm. For each trial, infants were shown two side-by-side videos, both featuring either their mother, or an unfamiliar woman, being stroked on the cheek. The infant’s own cheek was stroked by an experimenter, in synchrony with the touch seen in one of the videos and out-of-synchrony with the touch seen in the other video. Looking times were coded to the two videos. The second task investigated the extent to which mothers shared the emotional experiences of their infant. We measured automatic facial mimicry using electromyography (EMG) recorded from the corrugator and zygomaticus muscles, whilst mothers were observing emotional expressions recorded from their infant, or from an unfamiliar infant. We also asked mothers to indicate after each video their subjective emotional experience during the expression, using a 2-dimentional Visual Analogue Scale upon which mothers rated their valence and arousal. Two other data collections have been created for this grant, Part 1 and Part 2. These can be accessed via Related Resources. <p>Project description:</p>Humans are fundamentally social animals. We form close relationships with others and characteristically live in small, close social groups of siblings, romantic partners, and our infants. Social psychologists have shown that the way in which we process social information from our family members and intimate partners is very different to that from strangers and acquaintances. For example, we show increased empathy when our intimate partners are in pain, mothers have enhanced detection of their own infant's cries, and we show enhanced altruism and trust for our siblings. Evolutionary psychologists argue that these distinct social behaviors serve important biological functions, such as long-term pair-bonding, child-rearing, and maintenance of kin-relationships. In evolutionary history, these processes were central to survival and reproduction. They argue that much of our social behavior in the present day still serves these functional relationships, often on an implicit level. Therefore, evolutionary psychology has provided an explanation of why these special social processes exist, appealing to their specific biological functions. However, no-one has yet provided an explanation of how we are able to process social signals from our close family and partners in this special way. We suggest that a focus on the role of the body in social cognition may enable us to understand the neurocognitive basis of these evolutionarily important social processes. The way we represent our bodies and the bodies of others plays a central role in our understanding of social signals. Evidence suggests that when we observe the bodily experiences of others, such as touch, pain, emotion and movement, we 'share' these experiences. For example, when we see someone being touched, specific areas of our brains are activated in the same way as if we were touched ourselves. This sharing of others' bodily states, also known as 'bodily overlap', might underlie a number of important social processes, such as empathy, emotion recognition, and understanding others' intentions. So far, experiments investigating this bodily overlap have only used unfamiliar others as social stimuli, and so our understanding of the role of the body in social processing is restricted to how we interact with strangers. This neglects significant others, such as family and partners. Can differences in the way we represent their bodies in relation to our own explain the enhanced empathy we have for a partner, the increased trustworthiness we see in a sibling's face, or the special ability of a mother to read her infant's emotions and needs? And if we change bodily overlap, can this affect the quality of our relationships with close others? This project will investigate the role of bodily overlap for social cognition in biologically important social relationships, focusing on relationships between siblings, mothers and infants, and partners. For each relationship, we will use a variety of experimental methods to assess bodily overlap and social processing. We will also experimentally increase bodily overlap between individuals, and see how it changes perceived relationship quality. The results of our research may have a number of diverse applications. One area which our research might impact upon is that of health and well-being. The physical and mental health benefits of close relationships and the adverse effects of family breakdown are well documented. Our research will investigate the effects of increasing bodily overlap within these relationships to improve relationship quality, and this makes our research very relevant to relationship therapies and other family interventions. We also foresee a number of applications in other areas, including the work-place, whereby our research into close adult relationships could be extended to increase our understanding of the role of the body in creating and maintaining functional and productive relationships between work colleagues

Marriage migration and integration - Interview data

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>This data collection consists of semi-structured interviews designed to cover processes in five domains of integration (social, cultural, structural, civic and political, identity) with sections on life before and after marriage. The data deposited consists of the transcripts of the recorded semi-structured interviews with British Pakistani Muslim and British Indian Sikh spouses, and migrant Pakistani Muslim and migrant Indian Sikh spouses. This research explored the relationships between marriage migration and integration, focusing on the two largest UK ethnic groups involved in transnational marriages with partners from their parents’ or grandparents’ countries of origin: British Pakistani Muslims and British Indian Sikhs. <p>Project description:</p>Spouses constitute the largest category of migrant settlement in the UK. In Britain, as elsewhere in Europe, concern is increasingly expressed over the implications of marriage-related migration for integration. In some ethnic minority groups, significant numbers of children and grandchildren of former immigrants continue to marry partners from their ancestral homelands. Such marriages are presented as particularly problematic: a 'first generation' of spouses in every generation may inhibit processes of individual and group integration, impeding socio-economic participation and cultural change. New immigration restrictions likely to impact particularly on such groups have thus been justified on the grounds of promoting integration. The evidence base to underpin this concern is, however, surprisingly limited, and characterised by differing and often partial understandings of the contested and politicised concept of integration. This project combined analysis of relevant quantitative data sets, with qualitative research with the two largest ethnic groups involved (Indian Sikhs and Pakistani Muslims), to compare transnational ‘homeland’ marriages with intra-ethnic marriages within the UK. These findings will enhance understanding of the relationships between marriage-related migration and the complex processes glossed as integration, providing much needed new grounding for both policy and academic debates

UK-EU referendum Twitter data

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>This data collection consists of Tweet IDs collected on the UK-EU referendum between September 2015 and August 2016. The aim, during this fellowship, was to provide a unique trans-disciplinary contribution to the debate about the relationship between the UK and the European Union. The outputs from this fellowship will contribute to the programme's focus on attitudes towards the EU, including intra-UK regional variations in attitudes to the EU. Innovative interdisciplinary data sources on social and political attitudes to the EU and their drivers will be mined and analysed. The findings will be made accessible to policy-makers, political elites and to the wider public using novel applications of social media, direct collaboration with the mainstream media, and a public art installation as well as more traditional user engagement strategies. On a smaller scale, to keep coverage of what will be a rapidly shifting landscape current, some innovative ongoing research will be conducted. <p>Project description:</p>Continued UK membership of the European Union (EU), at least on the current terms of membership, increasingly appears to be in question. Traditionally an 'awkward partner' in the EU (George 1990), the UK as a whole has exhibited consistently low levels of attachment to the EU in cross- national opinion surveys. Prime Minister Cameron has promised that in the event of a Conservative victory in 2015, he will hold a referendum on continued EU membership of his country. At the same time, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), an avowedly Eurosceptic party, became the UK's largest party - with one third of the UK's seats - at the European Parliament elections of 2014. Yet, polls show support for EU membership in the UK to be peaking at its highest level in more than two decades (for example, IPSOS MORI Political Monitor, October 2014). Support for staying in the EU is highest in London (66%) and Scotland (60%). This poses a crucial dilemma to any vote- seeking political actor with anti-EU aspirations: how much does one move in the direction of proposing an anti-EU vision to a relatively Eurosceptic public, before one triggers a pro-EU backlash among the same public? Understanding how individual attachment to the EU is shaped and how context interacts with, and impacts upon, that attachment are matters of considerable contemporary interest to political elites, policy-makers and the general public. Recent advances in transdisciplinary methods, offer significant potential for the social sciences to make a unique contribution to explaining and predicting the responses of the public to changing political contexts and policy environments. Extensive opinion poll data exists but there is, as yet, no widely reported-on indirect political metric or psychological equivalent to, for example, Yougov or Panelbase. Drawing on extensive existing material (including experimental self-reports, physiological (hormone) testing data, neurological data from fMRI scanning and behavioural data) the applicant will address this gap in public knowledge in relation to EU developments. In addition, the shifting mood of the public on EU-related matters will be tracked throughout the period of the fellowship. Twitter analytics including sentiment- ratings, will be monitored; a visual twitter 'gallery', of photo, video and vine will be made accessible to policy-makers, political elites and to the wider public using novel applications of social media, direct collaboration with the mainstream media, and a public art installation as well as more traditional user engagement strategies. On a smaller scale, to keep coverage of what will be a rapidly shifting landscape current, some innovative ongoing research will be conducted. Continued UK membership of the European Union (EU), at least on the current terms of membership, increasingly appears to be in question. Traditionally an 'awkward partner' in the EU (George 1990), the UK as a whole has exhibited consistently low levels of attachment to the EU in cross- national opinion surveys. Prime Minister Cameron has promised that in the event of a Conservative victory in 2015, he will hold a referendum on continued EU membership of his country. At the same time, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), an avowedly Eurosceptic party, became the UK's largest party - with one third of the UK's seats - at the European Parliament elections of 2014. Yet, polls show support for EU membership in the UK to be peaking at its highest level in more than two decades (for example, IPSOS MORI Political Monitor, October 2014). Support for staying in the EU is highest in London (66%) and Scotland (60%). This poses a crucial dilemma to any vote- seeking political actor with anti-EU aspirations: how much does one move in the direction of proposing an anti-EU vision to a relatively Eurosceptic public, before one triggers a pro-EU backlash among the same public? Understanding how individual attachment to the EU is shaped and how context interacts with, and impacts upon, that attachment are matters of considerable contemporary interest to political elites, policy-makers and the general public. Recent advances in transdisciplinary methods, offer significant potential for the social sciences to make a unique contribution to explaining and predicting the responses of the public to changing political contexts and policy environments. Extensive opinion poll data exists but there is, as yet, no widely reported-on indirect political metric or psychological equivalent to, for example, Yougov or Panelbase. Drawing on extensive existing material (including experimental self-reports, physiological (hormone) testing data, neurological data from fMRI scanning and behavioural data) the applicant will address this gap in public knowledge in relation to EU developments. In addition, the shifting mood of the public on EU-related matters will be tracked throughout the period of the fellowship. Twitter analytics including sentiment- ratings, will be monitored; a visual twitter 'gallery', of photo, video and vine will be made accessible to policy-makers, political elites and to the wider public using novel applications of social media, direct collaboration with the mainstream media, and a public art installation as well as more traditional user engagement strategies. On a smaller scale, to keep coverage of what will be a rapidly shifting landscape current, some innovative ongoing research will be conducted. Continued UK membership of the European Union (EU), at least on the current terms of membership, increasingly appears to be in question. Traditionally an 'awkward partner' in the EU (George 1990), the UK as a whole has exhibited consistently low levels of attachment to the EU in cross- national opinion surveys. Prime Minister Cameron has promised that in the event of a Conservative victory in 2015, he will hold a referendum on continued EU membership of his country. At the same time, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), an avowedly Eurosceptic party, became the UK's largest party - with one third of the UK's seats - at the European Parliament elections of 2014. Yet, polls show support for EU membership in the UK to be peaking at its highest level in more than two decades (for example, IPSOS MORI Political Monitor, October 2014). Support for staying in the EU is highest in London (66%) and Scotland (60%). This poses a crucial dilemma to any vote- seeking political actor with anti-EU aspirations: how much does one move in the direction of proposing an anti-EU vision to a relatively Eurosceptic public, before one triggers a pro-EU backlash among the same public? Understanding how individual attachment to the EU is shaped and how context interacts with, and impacts upon, that attachment are matters of considerable contemporary interest to political elites, policy-makers and the general public. Recent advances in trans-disciplinary methods, offer significant potential for the social sciences to make a unique contribution to explaining and predicting the responses of the public to changing political contexts and policy environments. Extensive opinion poll data exists but there is, as yet, no widely reported-on indirect political metric or psychological equivalent to, for example, Yougov or Panelbase. Drawing on extensive existing material (including experimental self-reports, physiological (hormone) testing data, neurological data from fMRI scanning and behavioural data) the applicant will address this gap in public knowledge in relation to EU developments. In addition, the shifting mood of the public on EU-related matters will be tracked throughout the period of the fellowship. Twitter analytics including sentiment- ratings, will be monitored; a visual twitter 'gallery', of photo, video and vine uploads, will be analysed, curated and made available using Storify; and facial-coding of emotional responses to EU-related topics will be examined in collaboration with crowdEmotion

Television framing of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum - Part 4: Coding of frames in BBC Reporting Scotland coverage of the 2016 EU referendum

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>The frames identified in the coverage of the 2014 Scottish referendum are here applied to analyse coverage of the 2016 EU referendum on the BBC's Reporting Scotland daily bulletin. The purpose of this analysis is to allow a comparison between the framing of the Scottish referendum in 2014(see Related Resources) and a small sample of equivalent Scottish coverage of the 2016 EU referendum, particularly in relation to the relative prominence of the strategic game and policy frames in the two samples. Although analysis of the EU referendum coverage was not part of the ES/L010062/1 project, a comparison of the use of the game and policy frames is made in one of the project’s outputs (Dekavalla, forthcoming monograph). These data therefore complement the coding of frames in the TV coverage of the 2014 Scottish referendum (see related resources below, part 2) by showing how prominent the same game and policy frames were in a small sample of Scottish coverage of the later referendum. The 2016 sample contains all coverage of the EU referendum on BBC Reporting Scotland in the final month of the campaign, between 23 May and 23 June 2016. This dataset contains the coding of the frames that appeared in news items. The file records the date, duration, and type of each item in this coverage and whether or not the following frames were present: policy, strategic game, relationship between England and Scotland, divorce, constitutional change, national division, self determination, and national identity. The programmes themselves are available from the broadcaster. <p>Project description:</p>On 18 September 2014, the Scottish electorate will be called to answer a fundamental question about the future of the UK and Scotland: the decision of whether Scotland will become an independent state or remain a part of the UK will have an impact not only on the relationship between the British nations but also on other parts of Europe with similar concerns. Yet, as is the case with any contested issue, the definition of what this referendum is about will be negotiated between political and social groups, debated in the media and deliberated by voters before making their decision. Is the referendum a competition between two opponents fighting for the vote? Is it a matter of identity (shared or distinctive)? Is it a matter of economic survival and growth? This research will examine how the 2014 Scottish independence referendum campaign is framed in the news coverage of the two main television channels catering for audiences in Central Scotland, BBC Scotland and STV. The importance of television as a trusted source of news on political issues is constantly reaffirmed by surveys (Ofcom, 2013, Eurobarometer, 2012) and therefore what television says about a major political event is significant. The study will focus on Scottish news and current affairs coverage referring to the referendum in the final month of the campaign, create an original set of frames emerging from the coverage and measure which of them were more prominent. The project will also use structured interviews with political editors, heads of news and current affairs, political and civil society actors, to discuss how these representations were shaped in the interaction between journalists, media organisations and their sources. The project will contribute to public analysis of the news coverage of the referendum in the aftermath of the event and create opportunities for stakeholders to discuss how broadcasting contributes to the democratic process, through the way it reports on campaigns

Visuo-spatial abilities in autism

<p>Abstract copyright data collection owner.</p>Experimental data to test the theory that individuals with autism rely less on top-down processing. The influence of knowledge on perception was explored on two different levels. Firstly, we examined the encoding or input of information in those with and without autism. A second level in which the influence of top-down processing was explored is related to the output of knowledge. Three studies were carried out to investigate whether higher-level knowledge interferes with the ability to perceive a stimulus accurately in those with autism as it does in those with typical development. <p>Project description:</p>Autism is a developmental disorder that afflicts at least 1 child per ten-thousand, and perhaps as many as 1 in one-thousand. There is currently an increasing rate of diagnosis for reasons unknown. There is no cure, and afflicted individuals are destined to live with the disorder indefinitely, though with suitable programmes of intervention, individuals can adapt somewhat. The disorder is diagnosed according to behavioural criteria and impairments are apparent in communication, socialisation and imagination. Many individuals with autism also have associated learning difficulties, though some are high functioning and may even have measured intelligence that is higher than the population average. Autism in these individuals might be referred to as Asperger syndrome. Despite the impairments in autism, another characteristic is relatively heightened visuo-spatial abilities. Frith explains this paradox by suggesting that individuals with autism have weak central coherence, meaning that they tend to process piece-meal rather than holistically. So, for example, individuals with autism have an aptitude for detecting a small shape embedded in a larger figure. Whereas individuals without autism are hampered by their apprehension of the overall figure, those with autism readily process the stimulus in its constituent parts. Relatedly, it seems individuals without autism bring their conceptual knowledge to bear on encoding and reproduction (e.g. as in their drawings) of a stimulus, while those with autism perhaps are not so influenced by conceptual knowledge and are thus equipped to reproduce the stimulus more faithfully. The purpose of the proposed research is to conduct 4 systematic investigations into the encoding and the output of information in individuals with autism to establish the following. (1) Are they more effective in encoding visual than verbal input, as commensurate with their generally heightened visuo-spatial abilities? (2) Are their depictions faithful because they are not hampered by conceptual knowledge? In the first investigation, individuals with autism will be presented with a list either in words or pictures, either in the presence or absence of a theme cue that links the items. We expect those with autism to be better at recalling pictures than words and indeed to recall more of the pictorial information than comparison participants. We expect their recall of pictures to be so good, that the theme cue contributes no further help to retrieval, unlike in comparison participants. In the second, third and fourth investigations, we expect depictions made by individuals without autism to by contaminated by conceptual knowledge. We expect them to import material in some cases, while in other cases, we expect them to distort the shapes of presented stimuli. In other words, we expect the depictions to approximate towards what participants know about the presented objects. We expect the effect to increase, as the presented stimuli become more easily recognisable and classifiable as particular objects (Experiment 3). In contrast, we expect individuals with autism generally to depict the stimuli more accurately and we expect the recognisability of the stimulus object not to have such a marked effect in distorting depiction. The findings will tell us at least two things. They will tell us about the benefits of visually-based information for individuals with autism. For example, perhaps individuals with autism will be better at encoding and retaining material presented in pictures rather than words. The findings will also tell us about the autistic aptitude for faithful depiction, and especially its cognitive basis. Armed with this new knowledge, it will be possible to design programmes of curricula, intervention and therapy that are more closely suited to autistic cognitive characteristics. The findings will inform the construction of virtual environments for individuals with autism, in a project currently funded by the Shirley Foundation. In summary, the project will generate novel findings that are publishable in front-line journals, and it will also serve strategically to inform the applied work in the Shirley projec