Parts-based processing in autism
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Date
2015-01-09
Authors
Lazar, Tiffany
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Abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty “seeing the big picture” and tend to process objects by their parts. This study used a perceptual grouping task (Experiment 1) involving the Ponzo illusion to determine if individuals with ASD show a local processing bias due to difficulties grouping stimuli preattentively. Individuals with ASD were less likely than TD individuals to report an illusion-based response. The percentage of responses consistent with the illusion indicated at chance performance in the ASD group, suggesting that they experience deficits preattentively when grouping stimuli. This study also used a viewing window paradigm (Experiment 2) to evaluate the parts-based processing strategies used by individuals with ASD when allowed to either actively or passively view blurry objects using a restricted viewing aperture. For both conditions performance was similar across groups, suggesting that individuals with ASD use similar parts-based processing strategies as TD individuals to identify objects.
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Keywords
Vision, Autism