Right Temporoparietal Gray Matter Predicts Accuracy of Social Perception in the Autism Spectrum

Abstract

Individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show hallmark deficits in social perception. These difficulties might also reflect fundamental deficits in integrating visual signals. We contrasted predictions of a social perception and a spatial-temporal integration deficit account. Participants with ASD and matched controls performed two tasks: the first required spatiotemporal integration of global motion signals without social meaning, the second required processing of socially relevant local motion. The ASD group only showed differences to controls in social motion evaluation. In addition, gray matter volume in the temporal-parietal junction correlated positively with accuracy in social motion perception in the ASD group. Our findings suggest that social-perceptual difficulties in ASD cannot be reduced to deficits in spatial-temporal integration.