title: An early origin for detailed perception in Autism Spectrum Disorder: biased sensitivity for high-spatial frequency information.
abstract: Autistics demonstrate superior performances on several visuo-spatial tasks where local or detailed information processing is advantageous. Altered spatial filtering properties at an early level of visuo-spatial analysis may be a plausible perceptual origin for such detailed perception in Autism Spectrum Disorder. In this study, contrast sensitivity for both luminance and texture-defined vertically-oriented sine-wave gratings were measured across a range of spatial frequencies (0.5, 1, 2, 4 & 8 cpd) for autistics and non-autistic participants. Contrast sensitivity functions and peak frequency ratios were plotted and compared across groups. Results demonstrated that autistic participants were more sensitivity to luminance-defined, high spatial frequency gratings (8 cpd). A group difference in peak distribution was also observed as 35% of autistic participants manifested peak sensitivity for luminance-defined gratings of 4 cpd, compared to only 7% for the comparison group. These findings support that locally-biased perception in Autism Spectrum Disorder originates, at least in part, from differences in response properties of early spatial mechanisms favouring detailed spatial information processing.
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition (CERNEC), Université de Montréal.
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kéïta
authors.affiliation: 1] Perceptual Neuroscience Lab for Autism and Development [2] Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University.
authors.forename: Jacalyn
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guy
authors.affiliation: Center of Excellence for Pervasive Developmental Disorders (CETEDUM) & Department of Psychiatry, University of Montreal.
authors.forename: Claude
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Berthiaume
authors.affiliation: Center of Excellence for Pervasive Developmental Disorders (CETEDUM) & Department of Psychiatry, University of Montreal.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mottron
authors.affiliation: 1] Perceptual Neuroscience Lab for Autism and Development [2] Center of Excellence for Pervasive Developmental Disorders (CETEDUM) & Department of Psychiatry, University of Montreal [3] School/Applied Child Psychology, Department of Education and Counselling Psychology, McGill University.
authors.forename: Armando
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bertone
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult