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Abstract
Several studies have shown that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show abnormalities in P3b to targets in standard oddball tasks. The present study employed a three-stimulus visual oddball task with novel distracters that analyzed event-related potentials (ERP) to both target and non-target items at frontal and parietal sites. The task tested the hypothesis that children with autism are abnormally orienting attention to distracters probably due to impaired habituation to novelty. We predicted a lower selectivity in early ERPs to target, frequent non-target, and rare distracters. We also expected delayed late ERPs in autism. The study enrolled 32 ASD and 24 typically developing (TD) children. Reaction time (RT) and accuracy were analyzed as behavioral measures, while ERPs were recorded with a dense-array EEG system. Children with ASD showed higher error rate without normative post-error RT slowing and had lower error-related negativity. Parietal P1, frontal N1, as well as P3a and P3b components were higher to novels in ASD. Augmented exogenous ERPs suggest low selectivity in pre-processing of stimuli resulting in their excessive processing at later stages. The results suggest an impaired habituation to unattended stimuli that incurs a high load at the later stages of perceptual and cognitive processing and response selection when novel distracter stimuli are differentiated from targets.
Highlights
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by severe disturbances in reciprocal social relations, varying degrees of language and communication difficulties, and behavioral patterns which are restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped [1]
In a series of electrophysiological studies conducted by our group we explored specifics of event-related potential (i.e., event-related potentials (ERP)) reflecting information processing during performance on reaction time (RT) tasks in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) [3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
The reaction time findings in this study indicate that children with ASD had a less accurate behavioral performance
Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by severe disturbances in reciprocal social relations, varying degrees of language and communication difficulties, and behavioral patterns which are restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped [1]. Individuals with autism usually present excessive reactions to change in their environment such as aversive reactions to visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli These perception and sensory reactivity abnormalities, found in a majority of subjects with ASD, affect their ability to effectively process information [2]. The current study explored atypicality of reactivity to novel stimuli in autism during performance on a three-stimulus visual oddball task as reflected in RT and ERP. This study employed a visual novelty oddball task with simultaneous recording of motor responses and brain potentials in children with ASD and in typically developing (TD) children Such an approach allowed us to analyze attentional and cognitive processing mechanisms recruited in typically developing subjects relative to children with autism. Differentiation of motor responses in terms of their correctness reflected in error-related potentials (ERN, Pe) was expected to be deficient in children with ASD, and was predicted to negatively affect accuracy of motor responses
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