title: Children with Autism Detect Targets at Very Rapid Presentation Rates with Similar Accuracy as Adults.
abstract: Enhanced perception may allow for visual search superiority by individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but does it occur over time? We tested high-functioning children with ASD, typically developing (TD) children, and TD adults in two tasks at three presentation rates (50, 83.3, and 116.7 ms/item) using rapid serial visual presentation. In the Color task, participants detected a purple target letter amongst black letter distractors. In the Category task, participants detected a letter amongst number distractors. Slower rates resulted in higher accuracy. Children with ASD were more accurate than TD children and similar to adults at the fastest rate when detecting color-marked targets, indicating atypical neurodevelopment in ASD may cause generalized perceptual enhancement relative to typically developing peers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA.
authors.forename: Carl Erick
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Hagmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Penn State University, State College, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Bradley
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wyble
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA.
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shea
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA.
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: LeBlanc
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, State University of New York at Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Wendy R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Kates
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA. nrusso@syr.edu.
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Russo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D003116:Color; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention; Autism; Cognition; Development; Perception; RSVP; Visual search