Abstract
Before becoming aware of a visual scene, our perceptual system has organized and selected elements in our environment to which attention should be allocated. Part of this process involves grouping perceptual features into a global whole. Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) rely on a more local processing strategy, which may be driven by difficulties perceptually grouping stimuli. We tested this notion using a line discrimination task in which two horizontal lines were superimposed on a background of black and white dots organized so that, on occasion, the dots induced the Ponzo illusion if perceptually grouped together. Results showed that even though neither group was aware of the illusion, the ASD group was significantly less likely than typically developing group to make perceptual judgments influenced by the illusion, revealing difficulties in preattentive grouping of visual stimuli. This may explain why individuals with ASD rely on local processing strategies, and offers new insight into the mechanism driving perceptual grouping in the typically developing human brain.
Highlights
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with three core deficits: abnormalities in communication, poor social behavior, and repetitive or stereotyped behaviors [1]
In addition to the main components classifying an ASD diagnosis, individuals with ASD have been shown to exhibit superior performance on visuospatial processing tasks in comparison to typically developing individuals. This finding has been supported by studies showing that individuals with ASD show superior performance to typically developing individuals in processing the features of a stimulus compared to stimulus configurations in the block design subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [2,3,4,5], in detecting hidden figures [6] in detection of a local target in a visual search task [7,8], and in feature discrimination [9]
To foreshadow our results, we showed that even though neither group was aware of the illusion, individuals with ASD were significantly less likely than typically developing individuals to make perceptual judgments influenced by the illusion
Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with three core deficits: abnormalities in communication, poor social behavior, and repetitive or stereotyped behaviors [1]. In addition to the main components classifying an ASD diagnosis, individuals with ASD have been shown to exhibit superior (faster and more accurate) performance on visuospatial processing tasks in comparison to typically developing individuals This finding has been supported by studies showing that individuals with ASD show superior performance to typically developing individuals in processing the features of a stimulus compared to stimulus configurations in the block design subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [2,3,4,5], in detecting hidden figures [6] in detection of a local target in a visual search task [7,8], and in feature discrimination [9]. This increased reliance on local details has been explained by two theoretical accounts, the Weak Central Coherence (WCC) theory
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