Are People with Autism and Asperger Syndrome Faster Than Normal on the Embedded Figures Test?

Abstract

Previous work suggests children with autism show superior performance (in relation to their general mental age) on the Embedded Figures Test (EFT). Frith interprets this as showing that they have "weak central coherence". In Experiment 1, using an adult level version of this task, we aimed to replicate and extend this finding, first, by collecting response time (RT) data; second, by testing adults with autism of normal intelligence; and third, by testing a group of adults with Asperger syndrome, in order to test for differences between autism and Asperger syndrome. Both clinical groups were significantly faster on the EFT. In Experiment 2, we investigated if this difference was due to a preference for local over global processing, using a novel drawing task based on the classical Rey Figure. The clinical groups did not differ significantly on this test, but there was a trend towards such a difference. Alternative explanations for the EFT superiority in autism and Asperger syndrome are considered.

Reduced functional connectivity between V1 and inferior frontal cortex associated with visuomotor performance in autism

“…The absence of significant group differences in parietal areas in our fcMRI study may suggest that these anomalies do not primarily affect connectivity between V1 and parietal lobes. It remains open whether our results may be related to only partial impairment of visuospatial functions in autism with islets of ability, as observed in typically intact or even elevated performance on block design (Shah and Frith, 1993) or the embedded figures test (Jolliffe and Baron-Cohen, 1997).…”

Susceptibility to Optical Illusions Varies as a Function of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient but not in Ways Predicted by Local–Global Biases

“…These reports consist of superior performance in children and adults with ASD on the embedded figures task and on tasks that require fine-grained visual searches (Shah & Frith, 1983;Jolliffe & Baron-Cohen, 1997;Bölte, Holtmann, Poustka, Scheurich, & Schmidt, 2007). These observations, together with other lines of evidence, led…”

Functional Evaluation of Hidden Figures Object Analysis in Children with Autistic Disorder

“…The most robust demonstration of this comes from studies using the embedded figures task in which subjects are required to find a simple shape in a complex design. Children with autism are either more accurate or perform equally well as controls on this test (Jolliffe and Baron-Cohen 1997;Manjaly et al 2007;Ring et al 1999;Shah and Frith 1983).…”