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Children with Autism Detect Targets at Very Rapid Presentation Rates with Similar Accuracy as Adults

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Abstract

Enhanced perception may allow for visual search superiority by individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but does it occur over time? We tested high-functioning children with ASD, typically developing (TD) children, and TD adults in two tasks at three presentation rates (50, 83.3, and 116.7 ms/item) using rapid serial visual presentation. In the Color task, participants detected a purple target letter amongst black letter distractors. In the Category task, participants detected a letter amongst number distractors. Slower rates resulted in higher accuracy. Children with ASD were more accurate than TD children and similar to adults at the fastest rate when detecting color-marked targets, indicating atypical neurodevelopment in ASD may cause generalized perceptual enhancement relative to typically developing peers.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all of our undergraduate volunteers in the CARE lab for running participants. We would also like to thank the families and children who graciously gave their time for this research. This project was made possible by Grant support from a pilot Grant from the Hill Collaboration in Environmental Medicine to NR, BW, and WRK, as well as by the NIH (1R01MH101536–01 to NR, and 5R01MH064824-13 to WRK). Grant sponsor NIH; Grant Number 1R01MH101536–01 to N.R. and 5R01MH064824-13 to W.R.K.; Hill Collaboration on Environmental Medicine Diseases of the Nervous System Focus to N.R., W.R.K., & B.W.

Author Contributions

NR, BW, and WK designed the experiment. BW wrote the experimental and analysis programs. NS and ML conducted the testing. CEH and NR wrote the paper with input from the other authors and ML wrote the participants section of the Methods.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, 430 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA

    Carl Erick Hagmann, Nicole Shea, Megan LeBlanc & Natalie Russo

  2. Department of Psychology, Penn State University, State College, PA, USA

    Bradley Wyble

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, State University of New York at Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, USA

    Wendy R. Kates

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  1. Carl Erick Hagmann
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  2. Bradley Wyble
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  6. Natalie Russo
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Correspondence to Natalie Russo.

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Hagmann, C.E., Wyble, B., Shea, N. et al. Children with Autism Detect Targets at Very Rapid Presentation Rates with Similar Accuracy as Adults. J Autism Dev Disord 46, 1762–1772 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2705-9

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