Enhanced Visual Temporal Resolution in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Falter, Christine M.; Elliott, Mark A.; Bailey, Anthony

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032774

Cited by 63 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Neuroanatomical studies suggest high local connectivity between smaller minicolumns in the autistic primary visual cortex [16] that might be implicated in differences in threshold mechanisms in people with ASC, and atypical lateral connectivity has also been suggested to explain psychophysical findings of better contrast detection in the presence of lateral masks in ASC [17]. Enhanced performance in ASC has been shown for visual simultaneity thresholds [18], a localisation task in the temporal domain, which is similar to the task reported here in the spatial domain.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial localisation in autism: evidence for differences in early cortical visual processing

et al. 2013

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BackgroundVision in people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) is reported to be different from people without ASC, but the neural level at which the differences begin to occur is not yet known. Here we examine two variants of a vernier acuity task to determine if differences are evident in early visual processing.FindingsAbutting and separated vernier acuity was assessed in 16 people with ASC and 14 matched controls. In controls, abutting and separated thresholds were unrelated (r = 0.13, p = 0.65), suggesting thresholds are determined by two separate mechanisms. In contrast, the abutting and separated thresholds of ASC observers were strongly correlated (r = 0.88, p < 0.0001), with separated thresholds tending towards being superior to those of controls [t(28) = −2.46, p = 0.02].ConclusionsThe findings suggest the mechanisms employed by ASC observers in separated vernier tasks are different to those of controls. This psychophysical evidence suggests that visual differences in ASC may begin at an early cortical stage of visual processing.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial localisation in autism: evidence for differences in early cortical visual processing

et al. 2013

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“…Such enhanced discrimination abilities in ASD (though not always evident) have also been reported for novel dot patterns that vary quantitatively along a continuum (Plaisted et al, 1998b), pitch discrimination (Bonnel et al, 2003) and fine judgments of temporal simultaneity (Falter et al, 2012). High-fidelity mapping of low-noise representations also offers a simple account of superior performance by individuals with ASD on mental-image mapping tasks (e.g.…”

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confidence: 78%

Low endogenous neural noise in autism

Davis

Plaisted-Grant

2014

Autism

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'Heuristic' theories of autism postulate that a single mechanism or process underpins the diverse psychological features of autism spectrum disorder. Although no such theory can offer a comprehensive account, the parsimonious descriptions they provide are powerful catalysts to autism research. One recent proposal holds that 'noisy' neuronal signalling explains not only some deficits in autism spectrum disorder, but also some superior abilities, due to 'stochastic resonance'. Here, we discuss three distinct actions of noise in neural networks, arguing in each case that autism spectrum disorder symptoms reflect too little, rather than too much, neural noise. Such reduced noise, perhaps a function of atypical brainstem activation, would enhance detection and discrimination in autism spectrum disorder but at significant cost, foregoing the widespread benefits of noise in neural networks.

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“…Moreover, empirical findings found that individuals with ASD tend to perceive time atypically ranging from impaired interval timing to intact or increased temporal event structure coding and that this correlates with nonverbal communication difficulty (e.g. [100][101][102][103]). Given the heterogeneity of the autistic phenotype and assuming a more variable temporal processing style in ASD individuals, it may be that in both ASD and MIXED dyads neither partner's temporal style can reach close enough to the other in order to coordinate.…”

Section: Dyads With Autistic Participants Show Reduced Ipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduced nonverbal interpersonal synchrony in autism spectrum disorder independent of partner diagnosis: a motion energy study

et al. 2020

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Background: One of the main diagnostic features of individuals with autism spectrum disorders is nonverbal behaviour difficulties during naturalistic social interactions. The 'Interactional Heterogeneity Hypothesis' of ASD proposes that the degree to which individuals share a common ground substantially influences their ability to achieve smooth social interactions. Methods: To test this hypothesis, we filmed 29 autistic and 29 matched typically developed adults engaged in several conversational tasks. Windowed cross-lagged correlations were computed using the time series of motion energy of both individuals in a dyad. These coefficients were then compared across the three dyad types that were homo-or heterogenous with respect to diagnosis: pairs of two autistic individuals, two typically developed individuals or pairs of one autistic and one typically developed person. Results:We found that all dyad types achieved above-chance interpersonal synchrony, but that synchrony was more expressed in typical dyads compared to both autistic and mixed dyads.Limitations: The method presented here provides only one, albeit objective and robust, approach to explore synchrony. The methodological choices as well as the lack of consideration for other communication modalities may limit our interpretation of the findings. Moreover, the sample size is small with respect to exploring associations between synchrony and various outcome and social skill measures. Conclusions: The present results do not provide support for the Interactional Heterogeneity Hypothesis given that autistic individuals do not coordinate better when interacting with another autistic individual, compared to when interacting with a typical individual.

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Enhanced Visual Temporal Resolution in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Cited by 63 publications

References 47 publications

Spatial localisation in autism: evidence for differences in early cortical visual processing

Spatial localisation in autism: evidence for differences in early cortical visual processing

Low endogenous neural noise in autism

Reduced nonverbal interpersonal synchrony in autism spectrum disorder independent of partner diagnosis: a motion energy study

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