Monotropism

A cognitive theory of autism, developed by Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser, and Wenn Lawson, that describes autistic attention as tending to be pulled strongly into a narrow focus (one "attention tunnel") rather than distributed broadly across many concurrent inputs. Monotropism frames many autistic experiences — deep interests, hyperfocus, difficulty with transitions, overwhelm in multi-demand environments — as natural consequences of how attention resources are allocated, rather than as deficits. For digital-accessibility design, monotropism explains why single-task interfaces, predictable flows, clear state persistence, and support for resuming interrupted tasks are especially valuable for autistic users, and why cluttered dashboards and aggressive notifications disproportionately exclude them.