Study: People with Autism Perceive Illusory Shapes Differently

You might have seen this image, which is present. It includes two silhouettes facing one another and is black and white. Or perhaps you see the vase in black on a white background. But, you probably see both today.
An illustration of a visual illusion, it serves as a reminder that there is always more to the story or perhaps even another image to take into account totally that we may not have been able to see at first sight, ability, or knowledge. Researchers have discovered that children with autism spectrum disorder may not have brain processes that are similar to those that allow us to recognize these visual distinctions.

“How our brain puts together pieces of an object or visual scene is important in helping us interact with our environments,” said Emily Knight, MD, Ph.D., assistant professor of Neuroscience and Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and first author of a study out today in the Journal of Neuroscience. “When we view an object or picture, our brains use processes that consider our experience and contextual information to help anticipate sensory inputs, address ambiguity, and fill in the missing information.”

Knight and other neuroscientists employed visual illusions—groups of Pac-Man-shaped pictures that provide the impression of a shape in the void—at the Frederick J. and Marion A. Schindler Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience.

They worked with 60 kids, both autistic and not, ranging in age from seven to seventeen. Researchers found that children with autism did not automatically perceive the illusory shapes as effectively as children without autism. This was demonstrated using electroencephalography (EEG), a non-invasive neuroimaging technology. That implies that something is wrong with their brain’s feedback-processing pathways.

“This tells us that these children may not be able to do the same predicting and filling in of missing visual information as their peers,” Knight said. “We now need to understand how this may relate to the atypical visual sensory behaviors we see in some children on the autism spectrum.”

As a result of distractions, children with autism may not be able to see or understand body language the same way as their classmates, according to a prior study by Knight that was published in the journal Molecular Autism.

Children in this study saw films of moving dots that represented people. The experiment involved the dots changing color. Children with autism did not appear to detect the movement of people when instructed to concentrate on the color, in contrast to children with usual development. For their brains to effectively process human movement, they had to pay close attention to it.

“We also need to continue this work with people on the autism spectrum who have a wider range of verbal and cognitive abilities and with other diagnoses such as ADHD,” Knight said. “Continuing to use these neuroscientific tools, we hope to understand better how people with autism see the world so that we can find new ways to support children and adults on the autism spectrum.”

Source Link