Biological motion perception is differentially predicted by Autistic trait domains

Ka Shu Lee,Dorita H F Chang

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-47377-0

Abstract

We tested the relationship between biological motion perception and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient. In three experiments, we indexed observers’ performance on a classic left-right discrimination task in which participants were asked to report the facing direction of walkers containing solely structural or kinematics information, a motion discrimination task in which participants were asked to indicate the apparent motion of a (non-biological) random-dot stimulus, and a novel naturalness discrimination task. In the naturalness discrimination task, we systematically manipulated the degree of natural acceleration contained in the stimulus by parametrically morphing between a fully veridical stimulus and one where acceleration was removed. Participants were asked to discriminate the more natural stimulus (i.e., acceleration-containing stimulus) from the constant velocity stimulus. Although we found no reliable associations between overall AQ scores nor subdomain scores with performance on the direction-related tasks, we found a robust association between performance on the biological motion naturalness task and attention switching domain scores. Our findings suggest that understanding the relationship between the Autism Spectrum and perception is a far more intricate problem than previously suggested. While it has been shown that the AQ can be used as a proxy to tap into perceptual endophenotypes in Autism, the eventual diagnostic value of the perceptual task depends on the task’s consideration of biological content and demands.

Highlights

Humans are remarkably sensitive to socially-meaningful stimuli in the environment
Perhaps driven by the realization of the wealth of information contained in biological motion patterns, the study of biological motion perception has been increasingly popular in the field of developmental psychopathology – with posited links between perceptual sensitivities to biological stimuli and certain neurodevelopmental conditions, the socially-compromised Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
We tested the relationship between the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, indices of autistic-like traits applicable to adults of normative intelligence, and biological motion perception

Summary

Introduction

Humans are remarkably sensitive to socially-meaningful stimuli in the environment. Since the work of Johansson[1], it has been well-documented that human adults, and even neonates, infants and young children are able to detect human form and motion patterns (i.e., ‘biological motion’) when such information is minimally conveyed by a set of moving dots[2,3,4]. Perhaps driven by the realization of the wealth of information contained in biological motion patterns, the study of biological motion perception has been increasingly popular in the field of developmental psychopathology – with posited links between perceptual sensitivities to biological stimuli and certain neurodevelopmental conditions, the socially-compromised Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). And perhaps controversially, a growing collection of work has suggested that some social characteristics in ASD could manifest in, or alternatively be explained by anomalies in perception (e.g.13–16) Conclusions drawn from this body of literature, are far from homogenous. Both early and more recent work have reported compromised perceptual sensitivity towards biological motion in children with a www.nature.com/scientificreports/. It would not be hard to imagine that mature adults have a better capacity to attain efficient, compensatory strategies (e.g., detecting regularities from gradual accumulation of sensory experience) to accommodate incomplete perceptual information

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