Endogenous spatial attention: evidence for intact functioning in adults with autism

Infants' reorienting efficiency depends on parental autistic traits and predicts future socio-communicative behaviors

Attentional reorienting is dysfunctional not only in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but also in infants who will develop ASD, thus constituting a potential causal factor of future social interaction and communication abilities. Following the research domain criteria framework, we hypothesized that the presence of subclinical autistic traits in parents should lead to atypical infants' attentional reorienting, which in turn should impact on their future socio-communication behavior in toddlerhood. During an attentional cueing task, we measured the saccadic latencies in a large sample (total enrolled n = 89; final sample n = 71) of 8-month-old infants from the general population as a proxy for their stimulus-driven attention. Infants were grouped in a high parental traits (HPT; n = 23) or in a low parental traits (LPT; n = 48) group, according to the degree of autistic traits self-reported by their parents. Infants (n = 33) were then longitudinally followed to test their socio-communicative behaviors at 21 months. Results show a sluggish reorienting system, which was a longitudinal predictor of future socio-communicative skills at 21 months. Our combined transgenerational and longitudinal findings suggest that the early functionality of the stimulus-driven attentional network-redirecting attention from one event to another-could be directly connected to future social and communication development.

Visuospatial cueing differences as a function of autistic traits

Atypical orienting of visuospatial attention in autistic individuals or individuals with a high level of autistic-like traits (ALTs) has been well documented and viewed as a core feature underlying the development of autism. However, there has been limited testing of three alternative theoretical positions advanced to explain atypical orienting - difficulty in disengagement, cue indifference, and delay in orienting. Moreover, research commonly has not separated facilitation (reaction time difference between neutral and valid cues) and cost effects (reaction time difference between invalid and neutral cues) in orienting tasks. We addressed these limitations in two experiments that compared groups selected for Low- and High-ALT levels on exogenous and endogenous versions of the Posner cueing paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that High-ALT participants exhibited a significantly reduced cost effect compared to Low-ALT participants in the endogenous cueing task, although the overall orienting effect remained small. In Experiment 2, we increased task difficulty of the endogenous task to augment cueing effects. Results were comparable to Experiment 1 regarding the finding of a reduced cost effect for High-ALT participants on the endogenous cueing task and additionally demonstrated a reduced facilitation effect in High-ALT participants on the same task. No ALT group differences were observed on an exogenous cueing task included in Experiment 2. These findings suggest atypical orienting in High-ALT individuals may be attributable to general cue indifference, which implicates differences in top-down attentional processes between Low- and High-ALT individuals. We discuss how indifference to endogenous cues may contribute to social cognitive differences in autism.

Brief Report: Differences in Naturalistic Attention to Real-World Scenes in Adolescents with 16p.11.2 Deletion

Sensory differences are nearly universal in autism, but their genetic origins are poorly understood. Here, we tested how individuals with an autism-linked genotype, 16p.11.2 deletion ("16p"), attend to visual information in immersive, real-world photospheres. We monitored participants' (N = 44) gaze while they actively explored 360° scenes via headmounted virtual reality. We modeled the visually salient and semantically meaningful information in scenes and quantified the relative bottom-up vs. top-down influences on attentional deployment. We found, when compared to typically developed control (TD) participants, 16p participants' attention was less dominantly predicted by semantically meaningful scene regions, relative to visually salient regions. These results suggest that a reduction in top-down relative to bottom-up attention characterizes how individuals with 16p.11.2 deletions engage with naturalistic visual environments.

Rhythmic attentional sampling in autism

Individuals diagnosed with autism often display alterations in visual spatial attention toward visual stimuli, but the underlying cause of these differences remains unclear. Recent evidence has demonstrated that covert spatial attention, rather than remaining constant at a cued location, samples stimuli rhythmically at a frequency of 4-8 Hz (theta). Here we tested whether rhythmic sampling of attention is altered in autism. Participants were asked to monitor three locations to detect a brief target presented 300-1200 ms after a spatial cue. Visual attention was oriented to the cue and modified visual processing at the cued location, consistent with previous studies. We measured detection performance at different cue-target intervals when the target occurred at the cued location. Significant oscillations in detection performance were identified using both a traditional time-shuffled approach and a new autoregressive surrogate method developed by Brookshire in 2022. We found that attention enhances behavioral performance rhythmically at the same frequency in both autism and control group at the cued location. However, rhythmic temporal structure was not observed in a subgroup of autistic individuals with co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Our results imply that intrinsic brain rhythms which organize neural activity into alternating attentional states is functional in autistic individuals, but may be altered in autistic participants who have a concurrent ADHD diagnosis.

Equivalent own name bias in autism: An EEG study of the Attentional Blink

The "Attentional Blink" refers to difficulty in detecting the second of two target stimuli presented in rapid temporal succession. Studies have shown that salient target stimuli, such as one's own name, reduce the magnitude of this effect. Given indications that self-related processing is altered in autism, it is an open question whether this attentional self-bias is reduced in autism. To investigate this, in the current study we utilised an Attentional Blink paradigm involving one's own and others' names, in a group of 24 autistic adults, and 22 neurotypical adults, while measuring EEG. In line with previous studies, the Attentional Blink was reduced when the participant's own name was the second target, with no differences between autistic and neurotypical participants. ERP results show that the effect on the Attentional Blink of one's own name was reflected in increased N2 and P3 amplitudes, for both autistic and nonautistic individuals. This is the first event-related potential study of own-name processing in the context of the Attentional Blink. The results provide evidence of an intact attentional self-bias in autism, both at the behavioural and neural level.

Exogenous attention generalizes location transfer of perceptual learning in adults with amblyopia

Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is a behavioral manifestation of brain neuroplasticity. However, its practical effectiveness is limited because improvements are often specific to the trained conditions and require significant time and effort. It is critical to understand the conditions that promote learning and transfer. Covert endogenous (voluntary) and exogenous (involuntary) spatial attention help overcome VPL location specificity in neurotypical adults, but whether they also do so for people with atypical visual development is unknown. This study investigates the role of exogenous attention during VPL in adults with amblyopia, an ideal population given their asymmetrically developed, but highly plastic, visual cortex. Here we show that training on a discrimination task leads to improvements in foveal contrast sensitivity, acuity, and stereoacuity. Notably, exogenous attention helps generalize learning beyond trained spatial locations. Future large-scale studies can verify the extent to which attention enhances the effectiveness of perceptual learning during rehabilitation of visual disorders.

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Contrast sensitivity (CS)-based VPL in amblyopes improves CS, acuity and stereoacuity

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Similar improvement in trained amblyopic eye and untrained fellow eye

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Exogenous spatial attention facilitates location transfer of VPL in amblyopic adults

Shifting attention between modalities: Revisiting the modality-shift effect in autism

Selective attention to a sensory modality has been observed experimentally in studies of the modality-shift effect – a relative performance benefit for targets preceded by a target in the same modality, compared to a different modality. Differences in selective attention are commonly observed in autism and we investigated whether exogenous (automatic) shift costs between modalities are increased. Autistic adults and neurotypical controls made speeded discrimination responses to simple visual, tactile and auditory targets. Shift costs were observed for each target modality in participant response times and were largest for auditory targets, reflective of fast responses on auditory repeat trials. Critically, shift costs were similar between the groups. However, integrating speed and accuracy data using drift-diffusion modelling revealed that shift costs in drift rates (reflecting the quality of information extracted from the stimulus) were reduced for autistic participants compared with neurotypicals. It may be that, unlike neurotypicals, there is little difference between attention within and between sensory modalities for autistic people. This finding also highlights the benefit of combining reaction time and accuracy data using decision models to better characterise selective attention in autism.

Hyperfocus: the forgotten frontier of attention

'Hyperfocus' is a phenomenon that reflects one's complete absorption in a task, to a point where a person appears to completely ignore or 'tune out' everything else. Hyperfocus is most often mentioned in the context of autism, schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but research into its effect on cognitive and neural functioning is limited. We propose that hyperfocus is a critically important aspect of cognition, particularly with regard to clinical populations, and that it warrants significant investigation. Hyperfocus, though ostensibly self-explanatory, is poorly defined within the literature. In many cases, hyperfocus goes undefined, relying on the assumption that the reader inherently knows what it entails. Thus, there is no single consensus to what constitutes hyperfocus. Moreover, some studies do not refer to hyperfocus by name, but describe processes that may be related. In this paper, we review how hyperfocus (as well as possibly related phenomena) has been defined and measured, the challenges associated with hyperfocus research, and assess how hyperfocus affects both neurotypical and clinical populations. Using this foundation, we provide constructive criticism about previously used methods and analyses. We also propose an operational definition of hyperfocus for researchers to use moving forward.

Exploring the spatial working memory and visual perception in children with autism spectrum disorder and general population with high autism-like traits

The aim of the study is to compare the spatial working memory and visual perception between children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing control (TDC). Furthermore, this study validated whether this impairment was a feature of autism in general population with different autism-like traits (ALTs). This study contains two parts: case-control study and community population study. The ASD group and the control group were enlisted voluntarily (ASD group, n = 52; control group, n = 32). In the population study, we recruited 2994 children. Based on the scores of Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), children were divided into two groups (higher ALTs n = 122, lower ALTs n = 122). The participants completed the cognition tasks focusing on spatial working memory, visual-motor integration, and Intelligence. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted, with potential confounders IQ, age, and gender were controlled. Pearson correlations were computed by controlling the IQ and age as covariate to better understand the relations between visual perception, spatial working memory, and autism-like traits. In the case-control study, the results of cognition tasks focusing on the spatial working memory and visual perception indicated underperformance in children with ASD. In the community population study, we found that individuals with higher ALTs performed worse than children with lower ALTs in spatial working memory. Pearson correlation analysis suggested that a correlation between SWM total errors and visual perception was identified both in the children with ASD and in community population (ASD group, r = -0.592, p<0.001; general population, r = -0.201, p = 0.003). It suggested that spatial working memory deficit was a characteristic of autism, and may be distributed across the general population. Furthermore, we speculated a correlation between spatial working memory and visual perception in children with ASD and in general population.

Pupillometry correlates of visual priming, and their dependency on autistic traits

In paradigms of visual search where the search feature (say color) can change from trial to trials, responses are faster for trials where the search color is repeated than when it changes. This is a clear example of "priming" of attention. Here we test whether the priming effects can be revealed by pupillometry, and also whether they are related to autistic-like personality traits, as measured by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ). We repeated Maljkovic and Nakayama's (1994) classic priming experiment, asking subjects to identify rapidly the shape of a singleton target defined by color. As expected, reaction times were faster when target color repeated, and the effect accumulated over several trials; but the magnitude of the effect did not correlate with AQ. Reaction times were also faster when target position was repeated, again independent of AQ. Presentation of stimuli caused the pupil to dilate, and the magnitude of dilation was greater for switched than repeated trials. This effect did not accumulate over trials, and did not correlate with the reaction times difference, suggesting that the two indexes measure independent aspects of the priming phenomenon. Importantly, the amplitude of pupil modulation correlated negatively with AQ, and was significant only for those participants with low AQ. The results confirm that pupillometry can track perceptual and attentional processes, and furnish useful information unobtainable from standard psychophysics, including interesting dependencies on personality traits.

Sensory Abnormalities in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Focus on the Tactile Domain, From Genetic Mouse Models to the Clinic

Sensory abnormalities are commonly recognized as diagnostic criteria in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as reported in the last edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM-V). About 90% of ASD individuals have atypical sensory experiences, described as both hyper- and hypo-reactivity, with abnormal responses to tactile stimulation representing a very frequent finding. In this review, we will address the neurobiological bases of sensory processing in ASD, with a specific focus of tactile sensitivity. In the first part, we will review the most relevant sensory abnormalities detected in ASD, and then focus on tactile processing deficits through the discussion of recent clinical and experimental studies. In the search for the neurobiological bases of ASD, several mouse models have been generated with knockout and humanized knockin mutations in many ASD-associated genes. Here, we will therefore give a brief overview of the anatomical structure of the mouse somatosensory system, and describe the somatosensory abnormalities so far reported in different mouse models of ASD. Understanding the neurobiological bases of sensory processing in ASD mouse models may represent an opportunity for a better comprehension of the mechanisms underlying sensory abnormalities, and for the development of novel effective therapeutic strategies.

In search of exogenous feature-based attention

Visual attention prioritizes the processing of sensory information at specific spatial locations (spatial attention; SA) or with specific feature values (feature-based attention; FBA). SA is well characterized in terms of behavior, brain activity, and temporal dynamics-for both top-down (endogenous) and bottom-up (exogenous) spatial orienting. FBA has been thoroughly studied in terms of top-down endogenous orienting, but much less is known about the potential of bottom-up exogenous influences of FBA. Here, in four experiments, we adapted a procedure used in two previous studies that reported exogenous FBA effects, with the goal of replicating and expanding on these findings, especially regarding its temporal dynamics. Unlike the two previous studies, we did not find significant effects of exogenous FBA. This was true (1) whether accuracy or RT was prioritized as the main measure, (2) with precues presented peripherally or centrally, (3) with cue-to-stimulus ISIs of varying durations, (4) with four or eight possible target locations, (5) at different meridians, (6) with either brief or long stimulus presentations, (7) and with either fixation contingent or noncontingent stimulus displays. In the last experiment, a postexperiment participant questionnaire indicated that only a small subset of participants, who mistakenly believed the irrelevant color of the precue indicated which stimulus was the target, exhibited benefits for valid exogenous FBA precues. Overall, we conclude that with the protocol used in the studies reporting exogenous FBA, the exogenous stimulus-driven influence of FBA is elusive at best, and that FBA is primarily a top-down, goal-driven process.

Endogenous visuospatial attention increases visual awareness independent of visual discrimination sensitivity

Visuospatial attention often improves task performance by increasing signal gain at attended locations and decreasing noise at unattended locations. Attention is also believed to be the mechanism that allows information to enter awareness. In this experiment, we assessed whether orienting endogenous visuospatial attention with cues differentially affects visual discrimination sensitivity (an objective task performance) and visual awareness (the subjective feeling of perceiving) during the same discrimination task. Gabor patch targets were presented laterally, either at low contrast (contrast stimuli) or at high contrast embedded in noise (noise stimuli). Participants reported their orientation either in a 3-alternative choice task (clockwise, counterclockwise, unknown) that allowed for both objective and subjective reports, or in a 2-alternative choice task (clockwise, counterclockwise) that provided a control for objective reports. Signal detection theory models were fit to the experimental data: estimated perceptual sensitivity reflected objective performance; decision criteria, or subjective biases, were a proxy for visual awareness. Attention increased sensitivity (i.e., improved objective performance) for the contrast, but not for the noise stimuli. Indeed, with the latter, attention did not further enhance the already high target signal or reduce the already low uncertainty on its position. Interestingly, for both contrast and noise stimuli, attention resulted in more liberal criteria, i.e., awareness increased. The noise condition is thus an experimental configuration where people think they see the targets they attend to better, even if they do not. This could be explained by an internal representation of their attentional state, which influences awareness independent of objective visual signals.

How visual spatial attention alters perception

Visual attention is essential for visual perception. Spatial attention allows us to grant priority in processing and selectively process information at a given location. In this paper, I explain how two kinds of spatial attention: covert (allocated to the target location, without accompanying eye movements) and presaccadic (allocated to the location of the upcoming saccade's target) affect performance and alter appearance. First, I highlight some behavioral and neuroimaging research on covert attention, which alters performance and appearance in many basic visual tasks. Second, I review studies showing that presaccadic attention improves performance and alters appearance at the saccade target location. Further, these modulations change the processing of feature information automatically, even when it is detrimental to the task at hand. We propose that saccade preparation may support transsaccadic integration. Systematically investigating the common and differential characteristics of covert attention and presaccadic attention will continue to further our understanding of the pervasive selective processing of information, which enables us to make sense of our complex visual world.

When attention is intact in adults with ADHD

Is covert visuospatial attention-selective processing of information in the absence of eye movements-preserved in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Previous findings are inconclusive due to inconsistent terminology and suboptimal methodology. To settle this question, we used well-established spatial cueing protocols to investigate the perceptual effects of voluntary and involuntary attention on an orientation discrimination task for a group of adults with ADHD and their neurotypical age-matched and gender-matched controls. In both groups, voluntary attention significantly improved accuracy and decreased reaction times at the relevant location, but impaired accuracy and slowed reaction times at irrelevant locations, relative to a distributed attention condition. Likewise, involuntary attention improved accuracy and speeded responses. Critically, the magnitudes of all these orienting and reorienting attention effects were indistinguishable between groups. Thus, these counterintuitive findings indicate that spatial covert attention remains functionally intact in adults with ADHD.

Neural substrates of purely endogenous, self-regulatory control of attention

Stimulus-driven orienting of attention toward a novel, salient stimulus is a highly adaptive behavior. In an opposing vein, it is also crucial to endogenously redirect attention to other stimuli of behavioral significance if the attended stimulus was evaluated to be unimportant. This stimulus-driven orienting and subsequent reorienting of attention are known to be mediated by similar neural substrates. However, this might be because reorienting was triggered by a sensory transition exogenously capturing attention, such as an abrupt onset of a new stimulus. Here, we used fMRI to measure the human brain’s activity when attention captured by a salient distractor is endogenously reoriented toward the concurrent main task, without any exogenous shifting of attention. As results, the transient activity of the anterior insula (AI) signaled such endogenous reorienting, predicting behavioral performance. This finding points to the central role of the AI in purely endogenous, self-regulatory control of attention.

High internal noise and poor external noise filtering characterize perception in autism spectrum disorder

An emerging hypothesis postulates that internal noise is a key factor influencing perceptual abilities in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Given fundamental and inescapable effects of noise on nearly all aspects of neural processing, this could be a critical abnormality with broad implications for perception, behavior, and cognition. However, this proposal has been challenged by both theoretical and empirical studies. A crucial question is whether and how internal noise limits perception in ASD, independently from other sources of perceptual inefficiency, such as the ability to filter out external noise. Here, we separately estimated internal noise and external noise filtering in ASD. In children and adolescents with and without ASD, we computationally modeled individuals' visual orientation discrimination in the presence of varying levels of external noise. The results revealed increased internal noise and worse external noise filtering in individuals with ASD. For both factors, we also observed high inter-individual variability in ASD, with only the internal noise estimates significantly correlating with severity of ASD symptoms. We provide evidence for reduced perceptual efficiency in ASD that is due to both increased internal noise and worse external noise filtering, while highlighting internal noise as a possible contributing factor to variability in ASD symptoms.

Sensory perception in autism

Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition, and little is known about its neurobiology. Much of autism research has focused on the social, communication and cognitive difficulties associated with the condition. However, the recent revision of the diagnostic criteria for autism has brought another key domain of autistic experience into focus: sensory processing. Here, we review the properties of sensory processing in autism and discuss recent computational and neurobiological insights arising from attention to these behaviours. We argue that sensory traits have important implications for the development of animal and computational models of the condition. Finally, we consider how difficulties in sensory processing may relate to the other domains of behaviour that characterize autism.

Altered attentional processing in male and female rats in a prenatal valproic acid exposure model of autism spectrum disorder

Attention is foundational to efficient perception and optimal goal driven behavior. Intact attentional processing is crucial for the development of social and communication skills. Deficits in attention are therefore likely contributors to the core pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Clinical evidence in ASD is suggestive of impairments in attention and its control, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. We examined sustained, spatially divided attention in a prenatal valproic acid (VPA) model of ASD using the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT). As compared to controls, male and female VPA rats had progressively lower accuracy and higher omissions with increasing attentional demands during 5-CSRTT training, and showed further performance decrements when subjected to parametric task manipulations. It is noteworthy that although VPA exposure induced attentional deficits in both sexes, there were task parameter specific sex differences. Importantly, we did not find evidence of impulsivity or motivational deficits in VPA rats but we did find reduced social preference, as well as sensorimotor deficits that suggest pre-attentional information processing impairments. Importantly, with fixed rules, graded difficulty levels, and more time, VPA rats could be successfully trained on the attentional task. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study examining attentional functions in a VPA model. Our work underscores the need for studying both sexes in ASD animal models and validates the use of the VPA model in the quest for mechanistic understanding of aberrant attentional functions and for evaluating suitable therapeutic targets. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1929-1944. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

LAY SUMMARY

We studied rats prenatally exposed to valproic acid (VPA), an established rodent model of autism. Both male and female VPA rats had a range of attentional impairments with sex-specific characteristics. Importantly, with fixed rules, graded difficulty levels, and more time, VPA rats could be successfully trained on the attentional task. Our work validates the use of the VPA model in the quest for evaluating suitable therapeutic targets for improving attentional performance.

Attention Orienting in Response to Non-conscious Hierarchical Arrows: Individuals with Higher Autistic Traits Differ in Their Global/Local Bias

One aspect of the social communication impairments that characterize autism spectrum disorder (ASD) include reduced use of often subtle non-verbal social cues. People with ASD, and those with self-reported sub-threshold autistic traits, also show impairments in rapid visual processing of stimuli unrelated to social or emotional properties. Hence, this study sought to investigate whether perceptually non-conscious visual processing is related to autistic traits. A neurotypical sample of thirty young adults completed the Subthreshold Autism Trait Questionnaire and a Posner-like attention cueing task. Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS) was employed to render incongruous hierarchical arrow cues perceptually invisible prior to consciously presented targets. This was achieved via a 10 Hz masking stimulus presented to the dominant eye that suppressed information presented to the non-dominant eye. Non-conscious arrows consisted of local arrow elements pointing in one direction, and forming a global arrow shape pointing in the opposite direction. On each trial, the cue provided either a valid or invalid cue for the spatial location of the subsequent target, depending on which level (global or local) received privileged attention. A significant autism-trait group by global cue validity interaction indicated a difference in the extent of non-conscious local/global cueing between groups. Simple effect analyses revealed that whilst participants with lower autistic traits showed a global arrow cueing effect, those with higher autistic traits demonstrated a small local arrow cueing effect. These results suggest that non-conscious processing biases in local/global attention may be related to individual differences in autistic traits.

Covert spatial attention is functionally intact in amblyopic human adults

Certain abnormalities in behavioral performance and neural signaling have been attributed to a deficit of visual attention in amblyopia, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a diverse array of visual deficits following abnormal binocular childhood experience. Critically, most have inferred attention's role in their task without explicitly manipulating and measuring its effects against a baseline condition. Here, we directly investigate whether human amblyopic adults benefit from covert spatial attention-the selective processing of visual information in the absence of eye movements-to the same degree as neurotypical observers. We manipulated both involuntary (Experiment 1) and voluntary (Experiment 2) attention during an orientation discrimination task for which the effects of covert spatial attention have been well established in neurotypical and special populations. In both experiments, attention significantly improved accuracy and decreased reaction times to a similar extent (a) between the eyes of the amblyopic adults and (b) between the amblyopes and their age- and gender-matched controls. Moreover, deployment of voluntary attention away from the target location significantly impaired task performance (Experiment 2). The magnitudes of the involuntary and voluntary attention benefits did not correlate with amblyopic depth or severity. Both groups of observers showed canonical performance fields (better performance along the horizontal than vertical meridian and at the lower than upper vertical meridian) and similar effects of attention across locations. Despite their characteristic low-level vision impairments, covert spatial attention remains functionally intact in human amblyopic adults.

Visual Illusions: An Interesting Tool to Investigate Developmental Dyslexia and Autism Spectrum Disorder

A visual illusion refers to a percept that is different in some aspect from the physical stimulus. Illusions are a powerful non-invasive tool for understanding the neurobiology of vision, telling us, indirectly, how the brain processes visual stimuli. There are some neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by visual deficits. Surprisingly, just a few studies investigated illusory perception in clinical populations. Our aim is to review the literature supporting a possible role for visual illusions in helping us understand the visual deficits in developmental dyslexia and autism spectrum disorder. Future studies could develop new tools - based on visual illusions - to identify an early risk for neurodevelopmental disorders.

No difference in cross-modal attention or sensory discrimination thresholds in autism and matched controls

Autism has been associated with abnormalities in sensory and attentional processing. Here, we assessed these processes independently in the visual and auditory domains using a visual contrast-discrimination task and an auditory modulation-depth discrimination task. To evaluate changes in sensory function by attention, we measured behavioral performance (discrimination accuracy) when subjects were cued to attend and respond to the same stimulus (frequent valid cue) or cued to attend to one stimulus and respond to the non-cued stimulus (infrequent invalid cue). The stimuli were presented at threshold to ensure equal difficulty across participants and groups. Results from fifteen high-functioning adult individuals with autism and fifteen matched controls revealed no significant differences in visual or auditory discrimination thresholds across groups. Furthermore, attention robustly modulated performance accuracy (performance was better for valid than invalid cues) in both sensory modalities and to an equivalent extent in both groups. In conclusion, when using this well-controlled method, we found no evidence of atypical sensory function or atypical attentional modulation in a group of high functioning individuals with clear autism symptomatology.

Unimpaired attentional disengagement in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder

A prominent hypothesis holds that 'sticky' attention early in life in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) limits their ability to explore and learn about the world. Under this hypothesis, the core clinical symptoms of ASD - restricted interests, repetitive behaviors and impaired social/communication abilities - could all result from impaired attentional disengagement during development. However, the existence of disengagement deficits in children with ASD is controversial, and a recent study found no deficit in 5- to 12-year-olds with ASD. Nonetheless, the possibility remains that disengagement is impaired earlier in development in children with ASD, altering their developmental trajectory even if the attentional deficit itself is remediated or compensated for by the time children with ASD reach school age. Here, we tested this possibility by characterizing attentional disengagement in a group of toddlers just diagnosed with ASD (age 21 to 37 months). We found strikingly similar performance between the ASD and age-matched typically developing (TD) toddlers, and no evidence of impaired attentional disengagement. These results show that even at a young age when the clinical symptoms of ASD are first emerging, disengagement abilities are intact. Sticky attention is not a fundamental characteristic of ASD, and probably does not play a causal role in its etiology.

Global motion perception deficits in autism are reflected as early as primary visual cortex

Individuals with autism are often characterized as 'seeing the trees, but not the forest'-attuned to individual details in the visual world at the expense of the global percept they compose. Here, we tested the extent to which global processing deficits in autism reflect impairments in (i) primary visual processing; or (ii) decision-formation, using an archetypal example of global perception, coherent motion perception. In an event-related functional MRI experiment, 43 intelligence quotient and age-matched male participants (21 with autism, age range 15-27 years) performed a series of coherent motion perception judgements in which the amount of local motion signals available to be integrated into a global percept was varied by controlling stimulus viewing duration (0.2 or 0.6 s) and the proportion of dots moving in the correct direction (coherence: 4%, 15%, 30%, 50%, or 75%). Both typical participants and those with autism evidenced the same basic pattern of accuracy in judging the direction of motion, with performance decreasing with reduced coherence and shorter viewing durations. Critically, these effects were exaggerated in autism: despite equal performance at the long duration, performance was more strongly reduced by shortening viewing duration in autism (P < 0.015) and decreasing stimulus coherence (P < 0.008). To assess the neural correlates of these effects we focused on the responses of primary visual cortex and the middle temporal area, critical in the early visual processing of motion signals, as well as a region in the intraparietal sulcus thought to be involved in perceptual decision-making. The behavioural results were mirrored in both primary visual cortex and the middle temporal area, with a greater reduction in response at short, compared with long, viewing durations in autism compared with controls (both P < 0.018). In contrast, there was no difference between the groups in the intraparietal sulcus (P > 0.574). These findings suggest that reduced global motion perception in autism is driven by an atypical response early in visual processing and may reflect a fundamental perturbation in neural circuitry.

Exogenous spatial attention: evidence for intact functioning in adults with autism spectrum disorder

Deficits or atypicalities in attention have been reported in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet no consensus on the nature of these deficits has emerged. We conducted three experiments that paired a peripheral precue with a covert discrimination task, using protocols for which the effects of covert exogenous spatial attention on early vision have been well established in typically developing populations. Experiment 1 assessed changes in contrast sensitivity, using orientation discrimination of a contrast-defined grating; Experiment 2 evaluated the reduction of crowding in the visual periphery, using discrimination of a letter-like figure with flanking stimuli at variable distances; and Experiment 3 assessed improvements in visual search, using discrimination of the same letter-like figure with a variable number of distractor elements. In all three experiments, we found that exogenous attention modulated visual discriminability in a group of high-functioning adults with ASD and that it did so in the same way and to the same extent as in a matched control group. We found no evidence to support the hypothesis that deficits in exogenous spatial attention underlie the emergence of core ASD symptomatology.

Face recognition deficits in autism spectrum disorders are both domain specific and process specific

Although many studies have reported face identity recognition deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), two fundamental question remains: 1) Is this deficit "process specific" for face memory in particular, or does it extend to perceptual discrimination of faces as well? And 2) Is the deficit "domain specific" for faces, or is it found more generally for other social or even nonsocial stimuli? The answers to these questions are important both for understanding the nature of autism and its developmental etiology, and for understanding the functional architecture of face processing in the typical brain. Here we show that children with ASD are impaired (compared to age and IQ-matched typical children) in face memory, but not face perception, demonstrating process specificity. Further, we find no deficit for either memory or perception of places or cars, indicating domain specificity. Importantly, we further showed deficits in both the perception and memory of bodies, suggesting that the relevant domain of deficit may be social rather than specifically facial. These results provide a more precise characterization of the cognitive phenotype of autism and further indicate a functional dissociation between face memory and face perception.

Unimpaired Attentional Disengagement and Social Orienting in Children with Autism

Visual attention is often hypothesized to play a causal role in the development of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Because attention shapes perception, learning, and social interaction, early deficits in attention could substantially affect the development of other perceptual and cognitive abilities. Here we test two key attentional phenomena thought to be disrupted in autism: attentional disengagement and social orienting. We find in a free-viewing paradigm that both phenomena are present in high-functioning children with ASD (n = 44, ages 5–12 years) and are identical in magnitude to those in age- and IQ-matched typical children (n = 40). Although these attentional processes may malfunction in other circumstances, our data indicate that high-functioning children with ASD do not suffer from across-the-board disruptions of either attentional disengagement or social orienting. Combined with mounting evidence that other attentional abilities are largely intact, it seems increasingly unlikely that disruptions of core attentional abilities lie at the root of ASD.