title: Decreased coherent motion discrimination in autism spectrum disorder: the role of attentional zoom-out deficit.
abstract: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been associated with decreased coherent dot motion (CDM) performance, a task that measures magnocellular sensitivity as well as fronto-parietal attentional integration processing. In order to clarify the role of spatial attention in CDM tasks, we measured the perception of coherently moving dots displayed in the central or peripheral visual field in ASD and typically developing children. A dorsal-stream deficit in children with ASD should predict a generally poorer performance in both conditions. In our study, however, we show that in children with ASD, CDM perception was selectively impaired in the central condition. In addition, in the ASD group, CDM efficiency was correlated to the ability to zoom out the attentional focus. Importantly, autism symptoms severity was related to both the CDM and attentional zooming-out impairment. These findings suggest that a dysfunction in the attentional network might help to explain decreased CDM discrimination as well as the "core" social cognition deficits of ASD.
authors.affiliation: Developmental and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ronconi
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gori
authors.forename: Milena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ruffino
authors.forename: Sandro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Franceschini
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Urbani
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Molteni
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Facoetti
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis