Abstract
BackgroundEvidence indicates that social functioning deficits and sensory sensitivities in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are related to atypical sensory integration. The exact mechanisms underlying these integration difficulties are unknown; however, two leading accounts are (1) an over-reliance on proprioception and (2) atypical visuo-tactile temporal binding. We directly tested these theories by selectively manipulating proprioceptive alignment and visuo-tactile synchrony to assess the extent that these impact upon body ownership.MethodsChildren with ASD and typically developing controls placed their hand into a multisensory illusion apparatus, which presented two, identical live video images of their own hand in the same plane as their actual hand. One virtual hand was aligned proprioceptively with the actual hand (the veridical hand), and the other was displaced to the left or right. While a brushstroke was applied to the participants’ actual (hidden) hand, they observed the two virtual images of their hand also being stroked and were asked to identify their real hand. During brushing, one of three different temporal delays was applied to either the displaced hand or the veridical hand. Thus, only one virtual hand had synchronous visuo-tactile inputs.ResultsResults showed that visuo-tactile synchrony overrides incongruent proprioceptive inputs in typically developing children but not in autistic children. Evidence for both temporally extended visuo-tactile binding and a greater reliance on proprioception are discussed.ConclusionsThis is the first study to provide definitive evidence for temporally extended visuo-tactile binding in ASD. This may result in reduced processing of amodal inputs (i.e. temporal synchrony) over modal-specific information (i.e. proprioception). This would likely lead to failures in appropriately binding information from related events, which would impact upon sensitivity to sensory stimuli, body representation and social processes such as empathy and imitation.
Highlights
Evidence indicates that social functioning deficits and sensory sensitivities in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are related to atypical sensory integration
Data analysis In order to test the evidence for two opposing accounts of atypical sensory integration in ASD, we were interested in the extent to which the ASD group chose the synchronous hand across different conditions and in comparison to typically developing (TD) controls
Chi-square analyses were conducted for each group for each condition to assess whether the number of participants choosing the synchronous hand was more than expected if the group were performing at chance level, i.e. not performing systematically (Table 2)
Summary
Evidence indicates that social functioning deficits and sensory sensitivities in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are related to atypical sensory integration. Hypo- and hypersensitivities to sensory stimuli are prevalent in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) such that they are a diagnostic criterion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fifth edition) (DSM-5) [1] Evidence suggests that such sensory disturbances could be due to atypical multisensory integration (MSI): the process of combining sensory input to construct a comprehensible and unified representation of the world [2]. Far less is known about the mechanisms underlying atypical visual, tactile and proprioceptive integration in ASD This is important to establish since the capacity to compare and differentiate between the self and others depends on the normal integration of proprioceptive, somatosensory and visual inputs [4]. This ability, and a sense of body ownership, underlies the development of social behaviours
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