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Uta Frith

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Dame
Uta Frith
DBE, FRS, FBA, FMedSci
Frith at the Royal Society, 2012
Born
Uta Aurnhammer

(1941-05-25) 25 May 1941 (age 83)
Rockenhausen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Citizenship
  • Germany
  • United Kingdom (since 2019)
SpouseChris Frith
Children2
Awards
Academic background
Education
ThesisPattern Detection in Normal and Autistic Children (1968)
Doctoral advisorNeil O'Connor
Other advisorsBeate Hermelin
Academic work
DisciplinePsychologist
InstitutionsUniversity College London (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience)
Notable students
Main interests
Uta Frith's voice
from the BBC programme The Life Scientific, 6 December 2011.[1]
WebsiteOfficial website

Dame Uta Frith DBE, FRS, FBA, FMedSci (née Aurnhammer; born 25 May 1941[2]) is a German-British developmental psychologist and emeritus professor in cognitive development at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London (UCL). She pioneered much of the current research into autism[3][4][5][6][7] and dyslexia.[8][9] Her book Autism: Explaining the Enigma[10][11] introduced the cognitive neuroscience of autism. She is credited with creating the Sally–Anne test along with fellow scientists Alan Leslie and Simon Baron-Cohen.[12][13] Among students she has mentored are Tony Attwood, Maggie Snowling, Simon Baron-Cohen and Francesca Happé.

Education

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Uta Aurnhammer was born in Rockenhausen, a small town in the hills between Luxembourg and Mannheim in Germany. She attended Saarland University in Saarbrücken with her initial plan for her education being in art history, but changed to experimental psychology after learning of its empirical nature.[14] She was inspired by the work of psychologist, Hans Eysenck (who debunked psychoanalysis)[15] and decided to train in clinical psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry in London.[16] While at the institute, she was taught by Jack Rachman,[16] one of the pioneers of behaviour therapy. She went on to complete her Doctor of Philosophy, on pattern detection in autistic children, in 1968.[17][18][19][16][20]

Frith was mentored, during her early career, by Neil O'Connor and Beate Hermelin and has described them as pioneers in the field of autism.[21]

Research

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Frith's research paved the way for the recognition of a theory of mind deficit in autism.[22] In 1985, while she was a member of the Medical Research Council's Cognitive Development Unit (MRC-CDU) in London, she published with Alan M. Leslie and Simon Baron-Cohen the article "Does the autistic child have a 'theory of mind'?",[23] which proposed that people with autism have specific difficulties understanding other people's beliefs and desires. This paper used a false-belief task invented by Joseph Perner in 1983. Frith, and her colleagues,[24] created two theories of autism. The first is "lack of implicit mentalizing",[25] a lack of the ability to track others' mental state with a basis in the brain.[26] The second is "weak central coherence"[27] by which she suggested that individuals with autism are better than neurotypical people at processing details, but worse at integrating information from many different sources.[28] Frith was one of the first neuroscientists to recognize autism "as a condition of the brain rather than the result of cold parenting."[29]

She was one of the first people in the UK to study Asperger's syndrome,[30] at MRC-CDU London. Her work also focused on reading development, spelling and dyslexia.[16] Frith attacked the theory that dyslexia was linked to lack of intelligence[31] or caused by sensorimotor impairments.[32] In her book on spelling,[8] she pointed out that some people can be perfectly competent readers, but extremely poor spellers, a group of dyslexics not recognised before.[16] Her research, along with that of Maggie Snowling, showed that people with dyslexia tend to struggle with phonological processing.[33][31] In 1995 Frith, Paulesu, Snowling and colleagues conducted one of the first brain imaging studies with dyslexic adults showing that, while completing tasks requiring phonological processing, people with dyslexia show a lack of functional connectivity within the language network of the brain.[34]

Frith has been supported throughout her career by the Medical Research Council at University College London.[35] She was an active collaborator at the Interacting Minds Centre[36] at Aarhus University in Denmark. The goal of the centre is to provide a trans-disciplinary platform, upon which the many aspects of human interaction may be studied. The project is based in part on a paper written with Chris Frith: "Interacting Minds – a Biological Basis".[37]

Among students she has mentored are Tony Attwood,[38] Maggie Snowling,[39] Simon Baron-Cohen[40] and Francesca Happé.[41]

Supporting women in science

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Frith has encouraged the advancement of women in science, in part by developing a support network called Science & Shopping,[42] which she hopes will "encourage women to share ideas and information that are inspiring and fun."[43] She also co-founded the UCL Women[44] network, "a grassroots networking and social organization for academic staff (postdocs and above) in STEM at UCL," in January 2013.[45] In 2015 she was named chair of the Royal Society's Diversity Committee,[46] during which time she wrote about unconscious bias and how it affects which scientists receive grants.[47]

In the media

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On 11 May 2012 Frith appeared as a guest on the American PBS Charlie Rose television interview show.[48] On 4 December she appeared as a guest on the "Brain" episode of BBC Two's Dara Ó Briain's Science Club.[49]

On 1 March 2013, she was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.[50] In 2013 Frith wrote on the visibility of women in science, by promoting an exhibition on female scientist portraits at The Royal Society.[51]

From 31 March to 4 April 2014, to coincide with World Autism Awareness Day on 2 April, she was the guest of Sarah Walker on BBC Radio 3's Essential Classics.[52] On 1 April 2014, she featured in "Living with Autism", an episode of the BBC Horizon documentary series.[53] On 26 August 2015, she presented the Horizon episode entitled "OCD: A Monster in my Mind".[54] On 29 August 2017, she presented the Horizon episode entitled "What Makes a Psychopath?".[55]

On 13 December 2017, she gave an interview to the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health,[56] in which she talked about her early life and her passion for autism research in children.[13]

Fellowships and awards

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Frith was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2001, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2001, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005, an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 2006, an Honorary Fellow of University College London in 2007, a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2008, an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge in 2008, a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 2014.[57] She was President of the Experimental Psychology Society in 2006 and 2007.[58] Frith also received a honorary doctorate from the University of Bath.

In 2009, Frith and her husband, Chris, jointly received the European Latsis Prize[59] for their contribution to understanding the human mind and brain,[59] and in 2010 she was awarded the Mind & Brain Prize.[60] She received a William James Fellow Award in 2013.[24] In 2014, she and her husband won the Jean Nicod Prize, for their work on social cognition.[61]

In 2012, Frith became an Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), which was made substantive on 4 April 2019[62] after the German Government permitted dual British/German nationality.[63] This allowed her to be called Dame Uta. In 2015, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.[64]

Personal life

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Frith married Chris Frith in 1966.[65] He is now professor emeritus at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London. In 2008 a double portrait was painted by Emma Wesley.[66] They have two sons.[67]

References

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  1. ^ "Uta Frith". The Life Scientific. 6 December 2011. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  2. ^ "Who's Who 2023".
  3. ^ Houston, R. A.; Frith, Uta (2000). Autism in history: the case of Hugh Blair of Borgue [c. 1708–1765]. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 978-0-631-22088-6.
  4. ^ Gilles Trehin (2006). Urville. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN 978-1-84310-419-3.
  5. ^ Elisabeth Hill; Frith, Uta (2004). Autism, mind, and brain. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-852924-8.
  6. ^ Frith, Uta (1991). Autism and Asperger syndrome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38608-1.
  7. ^ Frith, Uta (2008). Autism. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1992-0756-5.
  8. ^ a b Frith, Uta (1983). Cognitive Processes in Spelling. London, UK: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-268662-7.
  9. ^ Frith, Uta; Sarah-Jayne Blakemore (2005). The learning brain: lessons for education. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-2401-0.
  10. ^ Leekam, Susan R. (May 1991). "Book Review: Autism: Explaining the Enigma". The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 43 (2): 301–302. doi:10.1080/14640749108400972. S2CID 149418391.
  11. ^ "Book Reviews: Autism: Explaining the enigma By Uta Frith". British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 21 (3): 465–468. 2003. doi:10.1348/026151003322277801.
  12. ^ Korkiakangas, Terhi; Dindar, Katja; Laitila, Aarno; Kärnä, Eija (November 2016). "The Sally-Anne test: an interactional analysis of a dyadic assessment". International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders. 51 (6): 685–702. doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12240. ISSN 1460-6984. PMID 27184176.
  13. ^ a b "Professor Uta Frith - Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health". ACAMH. 13 December 2017. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  14. ^ "Professor Uta Frith". University College London. 25 May 1941. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  15. ^ Eysenck, Hans (1957). Sense and Nonsense in Psychology. United Kingdom: Pelican Books. ISBN 9780140203851.
  16. ^ a b c d e Bishop, D. V. M. (2008). "Forty years on: Uta Frith's contribution to research on autism and dyslexia, 1966–2006". The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 61 (1): 16–26. doi:10.1080/17470210701508665. PMC 2409181. PMID 18038335.
  17. ^ Frith, Uta (1968). Pattern detection in children with and without autism (PhD thesis). Institute of Psychiatry, London. OCLC 728381460.
  18. ^ Frith, Uta (1970). "Studies in pattern detection in normal and autistic children. I. Immediate recall of auditory sequences". Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 76 (3): 413–420. doi:10.1037/h0020133. PMID 5490707.
  19. ^ Frith, U. (1970). "Studies in pattern detection in normal and autistic children". Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 10 (1): 120–135. doi:10.1016/0022-0965(70)90049-4. PMID 5459646.
  20. ^ Profile, University College London. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  21. ^ "Looking back: My mentors Beate Hermelin and Neil O'Connor". Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  22. ^ Askham, A. V. (2022). "'Theory of mind' in autism: A research field reborn".
  23. ^ Baron-Cohen, Simon; Leslie, Alan M.; Frith, Uta (October 1985). "Does the autistic child have a "theory of mind"?". Cognition. 21 (1): 37–46. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(85)90022-8. PMID 2934210. S2CID 14955234. Pdf.
  24. ^ a b "Uta Frith". Association for Psychological Science - APS. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  25. ^ Frith, U. (2012). "Why we need cognitive explanations of autism". Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 65 (11): 2073–2092. doi:10.1080/17470218.2012.697178. PMID 22906000. S2CID 46644086.
  26. ^ Frith, C.D. and Frith, U (2006). "The neural basis of mentalizing". Neuron. 50 (4): 531–534. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2006.05.001. PMID 16701204. S2CID 16198411.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. ^ Frith, Uta (2008). "Weak central coherence (p. 90 ff.)". Autism. A Very Short Introduction. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780199207565.
  28. ^ Happé, F.; Frith, U. (2006). "The Weak Coherence Account: Detail-focused Cognitive Style in Autism Spectrum Disorders". Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 36 (1): 5–25. doi:10.1007/s10803-005-0039-0. PMID 16450045. S2CID 14999943.
  29. ^ Kellaway, Kate (17 February 2013). "Uta Frith: 'The brain is not a pudding; it is an engine'". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 5 April 2013.
  30. ^ Uta Frith (1991),"Asperger and his syndrome". Uta Frith, ed., Autism and Asperger syndrome, pp. 1–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521386081
  31. ^ a b Frith, U. (1999). "Paradoxes in the definition of dyslexia ". Dyslexia. 5 (4): 192–214. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0909(199912)5:4<192::AID-DYS144>3.0.CO;2-N.
  32. ^ White, S., Milne, E., Rosen., Hansen,P., Swettenham, J., Frith, U. and Ramus, F. (2006). "Thr role of sensorimotor impairments in dyslexia: a multiple case study of dyslexic children". Developmental Science. 9 (3): 237–255. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00483.x. PMID 16669791.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  33. ^ Frith, Uta; Snowling, Maggie (23 November 2007). "Reading for meaning and reading for sound in autistic and dyslexic children". British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 1 (4): 329–342. doi:10.1111/j.2044-835x.1983.tb00906.x. ISSN 0261-510X.
  34. ^ Paulesu, E., Frith, U., Snowling, M., Gallagher, A., Morris, J., Frackowiak, R. and Frith, C.D. (1995). "Is developmental dyslexia a disconnection syndrome? Evidence from PET scanning". Brain. 119: 143–158. doi:10.1093/brain/119.1.143. PMID 8624677.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  35. ^ "Spotlight on Uta Frith". 10 July 2013.
  36. ^ "interactingminds.au.dk". interactingminds.au.dk.
  37. ^ Frith, C.D.; Frith, U. (26 November 1999). "Interacting minds—a biological basis". Science. 286 (5445): 1692–1695. doi:10.1126/science.286.5445.1692. PMID 10576727.
  38. ^ "Tony Attwood personal website". Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  39. ^ "Professor Maggie Snowling". St John's College.
  40. ^ "Simon Baron-Cohen University of Cambridge staff profile". Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  41. ^ "Francesca Happé IOP staff profile". Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  42. ^ "Science&shopping". sites.google.com.
  43. ^ Kylie Sturgess (28 October 2012). "#142 – On Women in Science and Wikipedia" (Podcast). tokenskeptic.org.
  44. ^ "Equality networks at UCL". Work at UCL. 21 August 2019.
  45. ^ "UCL Women". Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  46. ^ "Uta Frith". sites.google.com. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  47. ^ "Implicit and unconscious, the bias in us all | In Verba | Royal Society". blogs.royalsociety.org. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  48. ^ "Autism - Charlie Rose". charlierose.com. 11 May 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2023.
  49. ^ "Professor Uta Frith on BBC2 Dara O Briain's Science Club". BBC. 2012. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
  50. ^ "Professor Uta Frith on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs". bps.org.uk. 2013. Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 5 April 2013.
  51. ^ Frith, Uta (1 July 2013). "Invisible women of science – now appearing at the Royal Society". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
  52. ^ "BBC Radio 3 – Essential Classics, Monday – Sarah Walker with Uta Frith". BBC. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  53. ^ "Living with Autism". BBC. 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  54. ^ "OCD: A Monster in my Mind". BBC.
  55. ^ "What Makes a Psychopath?". BBC.
  56. ^ "The Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)". ACAMH.
  57. ^ "Uta Frith elected member of EMBO". cfin.au.dk. 14 May 2014.
  58. ^ "Previous Committee Officers". Experimental Psychology Society. 17 October 2017.
  59. ^ a b "Professors Chris and Uta Frith win European Latsis Prize". 19 November 2009. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
  60. ^ "Mind & Brain Prize - Mente e Cervello". mentecervello.it. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  61. ^ "2014 Jean Nicod Prize". Institut Nicod.
  62. ^ "Honours and Awards | The Gazette". thegazette.co.uk.
  63. ^ Amt, Auswärtiges. "Retention of German citizenship upon naturalisation in another country". uk.diplo.de.
  64. ^ "BBC 100 Women 2015: Who is on the list?". BBC News. 17 November 2015. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  65. ^ "Investigating Psychology: CHIPs". www2.open.ac.uk.
  66. ^ "The Neuroscientists: Portrait of Chris and Uta Frith". emma-wesley.co.uk.
  67. ^ "Investigating Psychology: CHIPs". www2.open.ac.uk.
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