title: Visual form-processing deficits in autism.
abstract: People with autism have a number of reported deficits in object recognition and global processing. Is there a low-level spatial integration deficit associated with this? We measured spatial-form-coherence detection thresholds using a Glass stimulus in a field of random dots, and compared performance to a similar motion-coherence task. A coherent visual patch was depicted by dots separated by a rotational transformation in space (form) or space-time (motion). To measure parallel visual integration, stimuli were presented for only 250 ms. We compared detection thresholds for children with autism, children with Asperger syndrome, and a matched control group. Children with autism showed a significant form-coherence deficit and a significant motion-coherence deficit, while the performance of the children with Asperger syndrome did not differ significantly from that of controls on either task.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognition and Neuroimaging, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK. janine.spencer@brunel.ac.uk
authors.forename: Janine V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Spencer
authors.forename: Justin M D
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: O'Brien
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D020817:Asperger Syndrome / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011601:Psychophysics; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D014795:Visual Pathways; D014796:Visual Perception