Typical perceptual organization in autism: Perceptual grouping and spatial distortion.
People with autism show normal perceptual grouping and space estimation when local and global cues are not pitted against each other.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Avraam et al. (2019) asked whether people with autism see visual scenes the same way as typical peers. They showed both groups pictures that can trick the eye. The task measured how the brain groups nearby objects and judges distances.
Participants completed two lab tests. One test checked if they had to group items even when they tried not to. The other test checked if they overestimated gaps between objects.
What they found
Both groups showed the same automatic grouping effect. The autism group could not turn off the grouping illusion. That means global organization is intact.
The autism group did overestimate distances a bit more. Still, the basic process of seeing space stayed typical.
How this fits with other research
Hadad et al. (2015) found the same thing earlier. When task rules are clear, people with autism can pull visual pieces together. The new study repeats that finding with stricter controls.
Laidi et al. (2023) extend the good news to real-life navigation. Adults with autism moved through a virtual city as well as typical adults. No cerebellar problems showed up either.
Rutherford et al. (2007) looks like a contradiction. They saw worse spatial memory in autism. The gap is task load. Their test piled on working-memory demands. Ravit kept competition low. When the job is simple, spatial skills look fine.
Why it matters
Do not assume every client with autism has a global processing deficit. First check if your task makes local and global cues fight each other. When competition is low, teach maps, graphs, or room layouts with confidence. If the task is heavy on memory, add extra supports.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The extensive literature on global-local processing in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has recently shifted from arguing for a processing impairment among those with ASD to positing an attenuated preference for global processing. One suggestion is that the fast extraction of the global gist is less efficient in ASD, in contrast to the superior attention-driven processing of local elements. To examine this claim of attenuated global processing, the present study tested how perceptual grouping affected the global organization of visual scenes, specifically testing the claim of less mandatory, more optional global processing in ASD. Participants judged the distance between grouped and ungrouped elements in displays in which illusory distortions were inherent in configurations exemplifying the Gestalt principles of organization. Results from six experiments manipulating different Gestalt cues showed a consistent pattern, indicating that for individuals with ASD, as for typically developed (TD) individuals, grouping processes are organizational in nature, incorporating the grouping of related elements while parsing these from other unrelated elements. This parsing is accompanied by distortions in the spatial relationships perceived in the visual scene. ASD participants exhibited an overall larger tendency to overestimate the distances, but they also demonstrated typical perceptual organization processes that were robust and mandatory and, as in neurotypicals, affected the perception of the whole scene. Autism Res 2019. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: It is known that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) perceive the world in a different way than their typically developed (TD) peers. While TD individuals exhibit strong bias toward processing the global structure of visual scenes, individuals with ASD exhibit enhanced perception of the local elements. We showed that when the local and global levels are not competing, individuals with autism demonstrate robust global organization that operates even when not directly instructed.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2019 · doi:10.1002/aur.2153