Weak Central Coherence

A cognitive theory proposing that individuals with autism tend to process information in a detail-focused, piecemeal way rather than integrating it into a coherent whole. In the context of web accessibility, weak central coherence means autistic users may focus intensely on individual elements of a web page while missing the overall layout, structure, or global meaning. This has implications for interface design: pages with clear hierarchies, consistent layouts, and reduced visual clutter may better support users who process information locally rather than globally. The theory helps explain eye-tracking findings showing that autistic users exhibit more fixations on irrelevant page elements and longer scan paths when searching for information.