Do different experimental tasks affect psychophysical measurements of motion perception in autism-spectrum disorder? An analysis

Abstract

There is a rapid increase in the number of individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA). Research on motion perception in HFA has shown deficits in processing motion information at the higher visual cortical areas (V5/middle temporal). Several hypotheses have been put forth to explain these deficits as being due to enhanced processing of small details at the expense of the global picture or as a global integration abnormality. However, there is a lot of variability in the results obtained from experiments designed to study motion in adults with autism. These could be due to the inherent diagnostic differences within even the same range of the autism spectrum and/or due to comparison of different experimental paradigms whose processing by the same visual neural areas could be different. In this review, we discuss the various results on motion processing in HFA, as well as the theories of motion perception in autism.

Keywords: autism-spectrum disorder; biological motion; form perception; global motion; high-functioning autism; local motion; motion perception; random-dot kinematogram.

Figure 1

Sample of embedded-figure task: (A) simple; (B) complex. Notes: Reproduced from Fonville L, Lao-Kaim NP, Giampietro V, et al. Evaluation of enhanced attention to local detail in anorexia nervosa using the embedded figures test; an fMRI study. PLoS ONE. 2013;8(5): e63964. Creative Commons license and disclaimer available from: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Figure 2

Motion perception stimuli. Notes: (A) RDK stimuli with differing coherence levels. Adapted from Robertson CE, Martin A, Baker CI, Baron-Cohen S. Atypical integration of motion signals in autism spectrum conditions. PLoS One. 2012;7(11):e48173. Creative Commons license and disclaimer available from: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode” http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. (B) Point-light display generated by small lights attached to main points on the human body (actor), which create biological motion stimuli. Reproduced from Nackaerts E, Wagemans J, Helsen W, Swinnen SP, Wenderoth N, Alaerts K. Recognizing biological motion and emotions from point-light displays in autism spectrum disorders. PLoS One. 2012;7(9):e44473. Creative Commons license and disclaimer available from: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Figure 3

Schematic of stimuli used by Tsermentseli et al for form coherence (left) and motion coherence (right). Notes: Reprinted by permission from Springer Nature: Springer. J Autism Dev Disord. Comparison of form and motion coherence processing in autistic spectrum disorders and dyslexia. Tsermentseli S, O’Brien JM, Spencer JV. 2008;38(7):1201–1210.

Figure 4

Activated areas for biological and coherent motion in ASD compared to TD. Notes: Copyright © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. John Wiley and Sons. Reproduced with permission from Koldewyn K, Whitney D, Rivera SM. Neural correlates of coherent and biological motion perception in autism. Dev Sci. 2011;14(5):1075–1088.