title: Visual processing in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: evidence from embedded figures and configural superiority tests.
abstract: The embedded figures test has often been used to reveal weak central coherence in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we administered a more standardized automated version of the embedded figures test in combination with the configural superiority task, to investigate the effect of contextual modulation on local feature detection in 23 adolescents with ASD and 26 matched typically developing controls. On both tasks both groups performed largely similarly in terms of accuracy and reaction time, and both displayed the contextual modulation effect. This indicates that individuals with ASD are equally sensitive compared to typically developing individuals to the contextual effects of the task and that there is no evidence for a local processing bias in adolescents with ASD.
authors.affiliation: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Neurosciences, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Herestraat 49, Box 7003, 3000, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dillen
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Steyaert
authors.forename: Hans P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Op de Beeck
authors.forename: Bart
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Boets
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014787:Vision Tests; D014796:Visual Perception