When do individuals with autism spectrum disorder show superiority in visual search?

Autism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 942-951 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aya Shirama ◽  
Nobumasa Kato ◽  
Makio Kashino
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Search Task ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Retinal Eccentricity ◽  
Target Feature ◽  
Target Eccentricity

Although superior visual search skills have been repeatedly reported for individuals with autism spectrum disorder, the underlying mechanisms remain controversial. To specify the locus where individuals with autism spectrum disorder excel in visual search, we compared the performance of autism spectrum disorder adults and healthy controls in briefly presented search tasks, where the search display was replaced by a noise mask at a stimulus-mask asynchrony of 160 ms to interfere with a serial search process while bottom-up visual processing remains intact. We found that participants with autism spectrum disorder show faster overall reaction times regardless of the number of stimuli and the presence of a target with higher accuracy than controls in a luminance and shape conjunction search task as well as a hard feature search task where the target feature information was ineffective in prioritizing likely target stimuli. In addition, the analysis of target eccentricity illustrated that the autism spectrum disorder group has better target discriminability regardless of target eccentricity, suggesting that the autism spectrum disorder advantage does not derive from a reduced crowding effect, which is known to be enhanced with increasing retinal eccentricity. The findings suggest that individuals with autism spectrum disorder excel in non-search processes, especially in the simultaneous discrimination of multiple visual stimuli.

scholarly journals Decreased homotopic interhemispheric functional connectivity in children with autism spectrum disorder

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuxia Yao ◽  
Menghan Zhou ◽  
Yuan Zhang ◽  
Feng Zhou ◽  
Qianqian Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Symptom Severity ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Brain Networks ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Volume Changes ◽  
Processing Network

AbstractWhile a number of functional and structural changes occur in large-scale brain networks in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), reduced interhemispheric resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) between homotopic regions may be of particular importance as a biomarker. ASD is an early-onset developmental disorder and neural alterations are often age-dependent, reflecting dysregulated developmental trajectories, although no studies have investigated whether homotopic interhemispheric rsFC alterations occur in ASD children. The present study conducted a voxel-based homotopic interhemispheric rsFC analysis in 146 SD and 175 typically developing children under age 10 and examined associations with symptom severity in the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange datasets. Given the role of corpus callosum (CC) in interhemispheric connectivity and reported CC volume changes in ASD we additionally examined whether there were parallel volumetric changes in ASD children. Results demonstrated decreased homotopic rsFC in ASD children in the medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex of the default mode network (DMN), the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex of the salience network, the precentral gyrus and inferior parietal lobule of the mirror neuron system, the lingual, fusiform and inferior occipital gyri of the visual processing network and thalamus. Symptom severity was associated with homotopic rsFC in regions in the DMN and visual processing network. There were no significant CC volume changes in ASD children. The present study shows that reduced homotopic interhemispheric rsFC in brain networks in ASD adults/adolescents is already present in children of 5-10 years old and further supports their potential use as a general ASD biomarker.

scholarly journals Callous-unemotional traits in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): replication of prevalence estimates and associations with gaze patterns when viewing fearful faces

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Virginia Carter Leno ◽  
Rachael Bedford ◽  
Susie Chandler ◽  
Pippa White ◽  
Isabel Yorke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Behavioral Problems ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Emotional And Behavioral Problems ◽  
Cu Traits ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Callous Unemotional

Abstract Research suggests an increased prevalence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and a similar impairment in fear recognition to that reported in non-ASD populations. However, past work has used measures not specifically designed to measure CU traits and has not examined whether decreased attention to the eyes reported in non-ASD populations is also present in individuals with ASD. The current paper uses a measure specifically designed to measure CU traits to estimate prevalence in a large community-based ASD sample. Parents of 189 adolescents with ASD completed questionnaires assessing CU traits, and emotional and behavioral problems. A subset of participants completed a novel emotion recognition task (n = 46). Accuracy, reaction time, total looking time, and number of fixations to the eyes and mouth were measured. Twenty-two percent of youth with ASD scored above a cut-off expected to identify the top 6% of CU scores. CU traits were associated with longer reaction times to identify fear and fewer fixations to the eyes relative to the mouth during the viewing of fearful faces. No associations were found with accuracy or total looking time. Results suggest the mechanisms that underpin CU traits may be similar between ASD and non-ASD populations.

Increased Dendritic Orientation Dispersion in the Left Occipital Gyrus is Associated with Atypical Visual Processing in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (11) ◽  
pp. 5617-5625
Author(s):  
Kiwamu Matsuoka ◽  
Manabu Makinodan ◽  
Soichiro Kitamura ◽  
Masato Takahashi ◽  
Hiroaki Yoshikawa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Sensory Profile ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Functional Changes ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Left Middle Temporal Gyrus

Abstract In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the complexity-specific hypothesis explains that atypical visual processing is attributable to selective functional changes in visual pathways. We investigated dendritic microstructures and their associations with functional connectivity (FC). Participants included 28 individuals with ASD and 29 typically developed persons. We explored changes in neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) and brain areas whose FC was significantly correlated with NODDI parameters in the explored regions of interests. Individuals with ASD showed significantly higher orientation dispersion index (ODI) values in the left occipital gyrus (OG) corresponding to the secondary visual cortex (V2). FC values between the left OG and the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) were significantly negatively correlated with mean ODI values. The mean ODI values in the left OG were significantly positively associated with low registration of the visual quadrants of the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (AASP), resulting in a significant positive correlation with passive behavioral responses of the AASP visual quadrants; additionally, the FC values between the left OG and the left MTG were significantly negatively associated with reciprocal social interaction. Our results suggest that abnormal V2 dendritic arborization is associated with atypical visual processing by altered intermediation in the ventral visual pathway.

scholarly journals Dysregulated Oscillatory Connectivity in the Visual System in Autism Spectrum Disorder

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.A. Seymour ◽  
G. Rippon ◽  
G. Gooding-Williams ◽  
J.M. Schoffelen ◽  
K. Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Gamma Oscillations ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Feedback Information ◽  
Autism Spectrum Disorder Group

AbstractAutism Spectrum Disorder is increasingly associated with atypical perceptual and sensory symptoms. Here we explore the hypothesis that aberrant sensory processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder could be linked to atypical intra- (local) and inter-regional (global) brain connectivity. To elucidate oscillatory dynamics and connectivity in the visual domain we used magnetoencephalography and a simple visual grating paradigm with a group of 18 adolescent autistic participants and 18 typically developing controls. Both groups showed similar increases in gamma (40-80Hz) and decreases in alpha (8-13Hz) frequency power in occipital cortex. However, systematic group differences emerged when analysing intra- and inter-regional connectivity in detail. Firstly, directed connectivity was estimated using non-parametric Granger causality between visual areas V1 and V4. Feedforward V1-to-V4 connectivity, mediated by gamma oscillations, was equivalent between Autism Spectrum Disorder and control groups, but importantly, feedback V4-to-V1 connectivity, mediated by alpha (8-13Hz) oscillations, was significantly reduced in the Autism Spectrum Disorder group. This reduction was positively correlated with autistic quotient scores, consistent with an atypical visual hierarchy in autism, characterised by reduced top-down modulation of visual input via alpha-band oscillations. Secondly, at the local level in V1, coupling of alpha-phase to gamma amplitude (alpha-gamma phase amplitude coupling, PAC) was reduced in the Autism Spectrum Disorder group. This implies dysregulated local visual processing, with gamma oscillations decoupled from patterns of wider alpha-band phase synchrony (i.e. reduced PAC), possibly due to an excitation-inhibition imbalance. More generally, these results are in agreement with predictive coding accounts of neurotypical perception and indicate that visual processes in autism are less modulated by contextual feedback information.

scholarly journals Functional connectivity for an “Island of sparing” in autism spectrum disorder: An fMRI study of visual search

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (10) ◽  
pp. 2524-2537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Keehn ◽  
Patricia Shih ◽  
Laurie A. Brenner ◽  
Jeanne Townsend ◽  
Ralph-Axel Müller
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Fmri Study
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