Adults with autism spectrum disorder are sensitive to the kinematic features defining natural human motion

Abstract

It has been hypothesized that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (hereafter “autism”) have problems perceiving biological motion, which contributes to their social difficulties. However, the ability to perceive the kinematic profile characteristic of biological motion has not been systematically examined in autism. To examine this basic perceptual ability we conducted two experiments comparing adults with autism with matched typical adults. In Experiment 1, participants indicated whether two movements—which differed in the quantity of formula‐generated biological motion—were the same or different. In Experiment 2, they judged which of two movements was “less natural,” where the stimuli varied in the degree to which they were a product of real movement data produced by autistic and typical models. There were no group differences in perceptual sensitivity in either experiment, with null effects supported by Bayesian analyses. The findings from these two experiments demonstrate that adults with autism are sensitive to the kinematic information defining biological motion to a typical degree—they are both able to detect the perceptual information in a same‐different judgment, and as inclined to categorize biological motion derived from real models as natural. These findings therefore provide evidence against the hypothesis that individuals with autism exhibit low‐level difficulties in perceiving the kinematics of others' actions, suggesting that atypicalities arise either when integrating this kinematic information with other perceptual input, or in the interpretation of kinematic information. Autism Res 2019, 12: 284–294 © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary It has previously been suggested that autistic children and adults have problems perceiving the detailed manner in which others move—that is, the subtle changes in speed as we move from point to point—which may impact on their ability to learn from, and about, others in a typical fashion. However, the results from the present two studies demonstrate that adults with autism can perceive this information, suggesting that atypicalities in processing others' movement may arise mainly as a consequence of atypical interpretation rather than perception.

Biological motion perception in autism spectrum disorder: a meta-analysis

“…2 that the effect sizes of the studies and their confidence intervals cluster around the estimated effect size from the model, and only a few studies cross the line of no difference. Studies included in this analysis are as follows: [9–14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 30, 31, 45, 46, 48–51, 53–55, 57–65, 98].

Fig.

…”

“…The proportion of females in the ASD sample had no effect on the results ( F (1, 33.2) = 0.11, p = 0.7454) nor did the proportion of females in the NT sample ( F (1, 29.7) = 0.61, p = 0.4402). Studies included in this analysis are as follows: [9–12, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 30, 45, 46, 48–50, 53–55, 57–62, 64, 65, 98].…”

A cross-species neural integration of gravity for motor optimization

“…Such a neural policy is thought to facilitate the production of accurate movements to changing directions, amplitudes, durations, and loads, by merely scaling the inertial-dependent part of the motor command. Albeit based on old literature, this influential compensation hypothesis still guides current research in various fields such as motor control (14,15), movement perception (16,17), or neuro-rehabilitation (18,19).…”

Adaptation to the Speed of Biological Motion in Autism

“…Previous research on the abilities of autistic individuals to process biological motion stimuli has produced mixed results. Autistic individuals have been found to present reduced sensitivity to biological motion and atypical brain activation patterns following the presentation of relevant biological stimuli in some studies (Annaz et al 2012;Blake et al 2003;Freitag et al 2008;Klin and Jones 2008;Koldewyn et al 2010;Nackaerts et al 2012;Wang et al 2015; see also Wang et al 2018, for a recent behavioural genetics approach), but other studies have found no such difficulties (Cusack et al 2015;Edey et al 2019;Jones et al 2011;Murphy et al 2009;Saygin et al 2010;van Boxtel et al 2016). With regard to the adaptive coding of biological motion in autism, van Boxtel et al (2016) found attenuated adaptation to action discrimination in autistic children while action discrimination (per se) was intact.…”