Monotropism

Monotropism and polytropism are according to Murray, Lesser and Lawson different strategies in distributing attention in the human brain. Monotropism refers to an attention-tunnel (undivided attention or attention-tunnel), while polytropism refers to multiple divided attention in the brain.

The Monotropism hypothesis was developed by Murray, Lesser and Lawson, a Doctor of Philosophy, a mathematician and a social worker, and regards attention-tunnels as the central feature of autism.

Autists don't have the ability to "multi-task".

In this model of mind, mental events compete for and consume attention. In a polytropic mind, many interests have a moderate amount of attention put into them, while in a monotropic mind, the person's attention is put into a few more specialized interests. The theory argues that when many interests are aroused, multiple complex behaviors emerge, but if only a few interests are aroused, fewer—but more intense—behaviors emerge.