Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Flexible integration of visual cues in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Bedford, R.; Pellicano, E.; Mareschal, D.; Nardini, M.

Flexible integration of visual cues in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder Thumbnail


Authors

R. Bedford

E. Pellicano

D. Mareschal



Abstract

Although children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show atypical sensory processing, evidence for impaired integration of multisensory information has been mixed. In this study, we took a Bayesian model-based approach to assess within-modality integration of congruent and incongruent texture and disparity cues to judge slant in typical and autistic adolescents. Human adults optimally combine multiple sources of sensory information to reduce perceptual variance but in typical development this ability to integrate cues does not develop until late childhood. While adults cannot help but integrate cues, even when they are incongruent, young children's ability to keep cues separate gives them an advantage in discriminating incongruent stimuli. Given that mature cue integration emerges in later childhood, we hypothesized that typical adolescents would show adult-like integration, combining both congruent and incongruent cues. For the ASD group there were three possible predictions (1) “no fusion”: no integration of congruent or incongruent cues, like 6-year-old typical children; (2) “mandatory fusion”: integration of congruent and incongruent cues, like typical adults; (3) “selective fusion”: cues are combined when congruent but not incongruent, consistent with predictions of Enhanced Perceptual Functioning (EPF) theory. As hypothesized, typical adolescents showed significant integration of both congruent and incongruent cues. The ASD group showed results consistent with “selective fusion,” integrating congruent but not incongruent cues. This allowed adolescents with ASD to make perceptual judgments which typical adolescents could not. In line with EPF, results suggest that perception in ASD may be more flexible and less governed by mandatory top-down feedback.

Citation

Bedford, R., Pellicano, E., Mareschal, D., & Nardini, M. (2016). Flexible integration of visual cues in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 9(2), 272-281. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1509

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 20, 2015
Online Publication Date Jun 19, 2015
Publication Date Feb 1, 2016
Deposit Date May 23, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 30, 2024
Journal Autism Research
Print ISSN 1939-3792
Electronic ISSN 1939-3806
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 9
Issue 2
Pages 272-281
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1509
Keywords Autism, Adolescent, Vision, Depth perception, Cue integration, Fusion.

Files

Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (252 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2015 The Authors Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Autism Research. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.






You might also like



Downloadable Citations