Author: Matthew Schneps
Affiliation: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (RETIRED)
Country: USA
Co-Author(s): Chen Chen
Affiliation: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Country: USA
Gerhard Sonnert
Affiliation: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Country: USA
Marc Pomplun
Affiliation: University of Massachusetts Boston
Country: USA
L. Todd Rose
Affiliation: Harvard Graduate School of Education
Country: USA
Manju Banerjee
Affiliation: Landmark College
Country: USA
Lincoln Greenhill
Affiliation: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Country: USA
Title: The advantages of astrophysics for those with reading impairment: an empirical study.
Society tends to measure people against the norm. Those who perform above the norm are perceived as gifted, while those who perform below are seen as impaired. A problem with this perspective is that norms have meaning only in the context of a task, and when the task is changed a person regarded as “impaired” may be perceived as “gifted.” The astronomy profession offers a rich array of contexts by which performance can be measured, raising the possibility that many who are otherwise traditionally considered “impaired” may exhibit gifts in astrophysical professions. In this paper we explore this question in the context of reading disabilities, an often-inherited neurological condition that impairs abilities for lexical processing and other cognitive functions. Interestingly, reading impairment has been empirically associated with advantages for certain specific skills involved in the analysis of images [1-6], and given that astronomy is a highly visual science, we investigated whether such capabilities may be enhanced among astronomers. Here we examined the visuospatial abilities of 30 astrophysicists with and without reading impairment, and compared their response with those of 74 high school students (novices). The task involved the analysis of simulated microwave spectra. (The angular span of the spectra was varied as a condition in the experiment.) As expected, the professional astrophysicists outperformed the novices, but while the performance of novices deteriorated as the span angle was broadened, performance improved in the experts. Notably, this contrast between expert and novice was especially pronounced in the scientists with reading impairment, suggesting that those with reading impairment may use different strategies for visual processing. (No such effects of reading impairment were observed in the novices.)
In a second study, we administered a survey [7] examining the incidence of reading impairment among 148 professional astrophysicists at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and 75 similarly accomplished academics at the Harvard Business School (HBS), selected at random. We found that (depending on the criteria used for reading impairment) the incidence of reading impairment is considerably higher among astronomy professionals compared with academics in business. Taken together, these studies suggest that astrophysics is a profession favorable to those with reading impairment.
References:
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http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751- 228X.2007.00013.x
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