Visual working memory performance is intact across development in autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Visual working memory (VWM) typically improves across childhood and adolescence. Yet, it remains unclear whether such improvement occurs in autism (ASD). We measured color, shape, and pattern VWM performance in children (N=49; Mage=11y; 41 males), adolescents (N=46; Mage=15y; 38 males), and adults (N=51; Mage=24y; 47 males) with and without ASD (91% White, 6% Black or multiracial). By adulthood, color VWM accuracy among 4 items was better in the TD group relative to ASD (p2=.039). In childhood, shape VWM RT among 8 items was faster in the TD group relative to ASD (p2=.063). While VWM capacity was intact in ASD, VWM performance differences between ASD and TD may depend on age and visual feature.

Atypical development of social and nonsocial working memory capacity among preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders

“…Interestingly, we also found that nonsocial WM capacity, assessed by inverted BM stimuli, showed similar developmental deviance as social WM capacity. This result contradicts the intact or even better WM capacity reported by the three recent studies that rigorously measured WM capacity with continuous cued‐recall or change detection, the same paradigm employed here (Bodner et al, 2019; Lynn et al, 2022; Stevenson et al, 2021). We postulate that differences in visual features of memory items, the age of participants, or both, might lead to this discrepancy.…”

“…The three studies presented simple visual items simultaneously at different locations and varied their visual features, i.e., colors, colored shapes, and visual patterns. Pertinent to our study, Lynn et al (2022) found that children (mean age 11, range 7 ~ 12 years), adolescents, and adults all showed comparable WM capacity when tested with different visual features, including object color, shape, and pattern. Similarly, (Bodner et al, 2019) reported intact WM capacity for colored objects among adolescents and adults with ASD.…”

“…Interestingly, the importance of feature encoding for the WM test is indicated by a rare finding of superior WM capacity among adults with ASD: when adults with ASD showed perceptual advantage (hue discrimination) over the TD participants for the remembered color stimuli, they also performed better in the recall of these stimuli in the WM test (Stevenson et al, 2021). The other factor that might contribute to the discrepant findings is age difference since the lowest age span reported previously was 7 to 12 years (Lynn et al, 2022), and we examined between ages 4 and 6. It is possible that the developmental trajectory of WM is different for different memory items; future studies are warranted to comprehensively examine the joint effect of visual features and age on WM capacity.…”

“…The finding of low WM capacity only at age 6 differs from the developmental pattern of other types of WM in ASD. For spatial WM (e.g., change detection in complex scenes) and object WM, researchers typically found a truncated developmental trajectory with improvement arrested in adolescence, followed by a substantial group difference in adulthood (Luna et al, 2007; Lynn et al, 2022; O'Hearn et al, 2008; O'Hearn et al, 2010; O'Hearn et al, 2014). The emergence of social WM deficits thus appears early, possibly associated with developmental deviance in social cognition among children with ASD.…”

“…The estimation of WM capacity demands the use of rigorous methods, for example, change detection or continuous‐feature recall paradigms, to limit the role of information manipulation (Cowan, 2001; Zhang & Luck, 2008). The few studies that employed these methods revealed that individuals with ASD have intact or even better WM capacity for nonsocial stimuli (Bodner et al, 2019; Lynn et al, 2022; Stevenson et al, 2021), but its early development, especially in preschoolers, was left unchecked(see Cowan, 2016, for a review; Riggs et al, 2006; Simmering, 2012).…”