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No evidence for a fundamental visual motion processing deficit in autism spectrum disorders

(2011). No evidence for a fundamental visual motion processing deficit in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Lay Abstract Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have complex social and communication difficulties. It has been suggested that these difficulties might be partly driven by very basic differences in visual perception, but results to date have been mixed. In the largest study of its kind, we tested adolescents both with and without ASD on three measures of basic visual processing: motion coherence, form-from-motion, and biological motion. For the groups as a whole, we found no evidence of differences between those with and without ASD suggesting that there is no fundamental visual motion processing deficit in individuals with an ASD, at least by adolescence. However, we did find a subgroup of individuals with ASD (approximately one in five of the sample) who had a low IQ and who had exceptionally poor biological motion processing abilities. Biological motion is the motion that an animate object makes and recognising it is important for social-cognitive understanding. For both groups, we also found a positive correlation in performance between the biological motion task and the Frith-Happé animations, a task that requires the interpretation of the thinking patterns and 'mental states' of two small cartoon triangles. We argue that this association reflects that both are tasks that involve social cognition and use the same part of the brain, the superior temporal sulcus.. Abstract It has been suggested that atypicalities in low level visual processing contribute to the expression and development of the unusual cognitive and behavioural profile seen in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, previous investigations have yielded mixed results. In the largest study of its kind (ASD n = 89; non-ASD = 52; mean age 15 years 6 months) and testing across the spectrum of IQ (range 52-133), we investigated performance on three measures of basic visual processing: motion coherence, form-from-motion and biological motion. At the group level, we found no evidence of differences between the two groups on any of the tasks, suggesting that there is no fundamental visual motion processing deficit in individuals with an ASD, at least by adolescence. However, we identified a tail of individuals with ASD (18% of the sample) who had exceptionally poor biological motion processing abilities compared to the non-ASD group, and who were characterised by low IQ. For the entire sample of those both with and without ASD, performance on …