[lifeisstillgood]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseveration

oh - the highly repetitive response common in autism.

Are there gradients of perseveration? This is absolutely fascinating - a brain based answer to why people do many behaviours - from sitting in the corner mumbling one word over and over, to various forms of self sabotage ("always picking the wrong man")

(And I might say heartening - as the father of an ASD child, it can seem hopeless, but just being armed with some knowledge of where the behaviours come from might allow some hope)

[trombonechamp]

There are ways we can measure perseveration in the lab, and so yes, it can be higher or lower in different people. If you want to look into it more, a popular way to measure it is the Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST), or the version for children, the Dimension Change Card Sort task (DCCS). However, like all cognitive tests, these are imperfect measurements of perseveration - they may be indicators of higher or lower perseveration, but scores may be influenced by a multitude of other factors as well. Likewise, there may be aspects of perseveration not captured by these tests - like you mention, there are different ways that one can be perseverative, and one single number can't ever represent the complexity of human behavior.

[lifeisstillgood]

thank you