Global processing takes time: A meta-analysis on local–global visual processing in ASD.

Abstract

What does an individual with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) perceive first: the forest or the trees? In spite of 30 years of research and influential theories like the weak central coherence (WCC) theory and the enhanced perceptual functioning (EPF) account, the interplay of local and global visual processing in ASD remains only partly understood. Research findings vary in indicating a local processing bias or a global processing deficit, and often contradict each other. We have applied a formal meta-analytic approach and combined 56 articles that tested about 1,000 ASD participants and used a wide range of stimuli and tasks to investigate local and global visual processing in ASD. Overall, results show no enhanced local visual processing nor a deficit in global visual processing. Detailed analysis reveals a difference in the temporal pattern of the local-global balance, that is, slow global processing in individuals with ASD. Whereas task-dependent interaction effects are obtained, gender, age, and IQ of either participant groups seem to have no direct influence on performance. Based on the overview of the literature, suggestions are made for future research.

Local Versus Global Processing in Autism: Special Section Editorial

“…The papers in this special section by Booth and Happé (2017), together with a recent publication elsewhere in this journal by Guy et al (2017) are sympathetic to what is now called "weak coherence" (Happé and Frith 2006) and the EPF accounts respectively and give up-to-date interpretations of them in the light of more recent findings, particularly as viewed through the lens of the Van der Hallen et al (2015) meta-analysis. Interestingly, both studies confirm the finding of Van der Hallen et al (2015) that the most robust difference between ASD and TD populations in this context is local-to-global interference in the temporal component of visual processing, although, in typical fashion for the field, a more-recent study by Van der Hallen et al (2017b) has not confirmed this result in a larger group. Van Eylen et al (2017) provide a theoretically agnostic comparison of local versus global processing abilities in ASD and TD individuals using a battery of tests on a large, well-characterized group.…”

“…general review of the literature on vision in Autism Spectrum Disorder (Simmons et al 2009) and the more recent publication, from the Leuven group of which Dr. Boets was then a part, of a meta-analysis focused on the topic (van der Hallen et al 2015).…”

“…Whilst Simmons et al (2009) came down in favour of superior local processing ("… local superiority effects in tasks such as visual search seem to be holding their own", p. 2728), Van der Hallen et al (2015) found strong evidence of publication bias in this literature which was obscuring a small-to-insignificant effect except in cases where the Dependent Variable was Reaction Time and the task was a "global" judgement in the presence of "local" distractors, such as one version of the well-known Navon task. Van der Hallen et al's (2015) analysis confirmed a suspicion expressed earlier on the same page of Simmons et al (2009) that much of the data on vision and autism published between 2005 and 2009 was "… contradictory, or at least contested."…”

Fitting three-level meta-analytic models in R: A step-by-step tutorial

“…In this case, including that single discrete variable as a moderator in the syntax (i.e., after the mods~element) would suffice. However, it has become rather common to report on the mean effect (as well as significance and confidence interval) of all categories of a discrete potential moderating variable (see, for instance, Assink et al, 2015;Houben et al, 2015;Rapp, Van den Noortgate, Broekaert, & Vanderplasschen, 2014;Van der Hallen, Evers, Brewaeys, Van den Noortgate, & Wagemans, 2015;Van der Stouwe, Asscher, Stams, Dekovic, & Van der Laan, 2014;Weisz et al, 2013 # Determine the potential moderating effect of publication status; # Unpublished studies are now tested against published # studies, so published studies serve as the reference category; # Print the results stored in the object "published" on screen. published <-rma.mv(y, v, mods =~pstatnotpub, random = list(~1 | effectsizeID,1 | studyID), tdist=TRUE, data=dataset) summary(published, digits=3)…”

How Do We Explain ‛Autistic Traits’ in European Upper Palaeolithic Art?

“…Global processing is not impossible for most individuals with ASC, but is more difficult and demands effort (Koldewyn et al, 2013;Stevenson et al, 2016). A meta-analysis of visuo-spatial performance tests in autism spectrum disorders shows superior performance in both embedded figures testing and block design and another meta-analysis suggests slower global processing in ASD ( Van der Hallen et al, 2015). It is suggested that these differences are related to differences in brain connectivity (Belmonte et al, 2004) and that they profoundly affect how different individuals interact with their material and social worlds.…”