Contextual effect in people with Williams syndrome

▶ Proposition integration task was employed to investigate the contextual effect in semantic processing in people with Williams syndrome (WS). Results revealed deviant processing of people with WS to typically developing groups. ▶ Healthy adults showed increased false alarm rates and confidence ratings with the increase of proposition numbers, whereas people with WS showed no such pattern. Typically developing children controls showed intermediate pattern in the integration task. ▶ It was concluded that proposition integration is a gradual developing process from childhood into adulthood and a deviant process for people with WS. ▶ Deficient integration hypothesis of people with WS was confirmed to bridge the discrepancy between typical performance in semantic priming (Tyler et al., 1997) and atypical brain signatures in the face study (Mills et al., 2000).