International Meeting for Autism Research (London, May 15-17, 2008): Enhanced Performance on the Embedded Figures Test in Autism is not Linked to Cognitive Effort: A Pupil Dilation Study

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Champagne Terrace/Bordeaux (Novotel London West)

M. T. DiNino , Brain Development Imaging Lab, Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

B. M. Keehn , Joint Doctoral Program Language and Communicative Disorders, San Diego State University and University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA

L. A. Brenner , University of California, Los Angeles

S. P. Marshall , Department of Psychology, San Diego State University

A. J. Lincoln , Alliant International University, Los Angeles, CA

R. A. Müller , Brain Development Imaging Lab, Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

Background: Previous research has shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) excel at the embedded figures test (EFT), but the causes of this superiority are not well understood. Eye-tracking provides a tool for investigating cognitive effort by measuring the pupillary response, which has been previously shown to reflect cognitive workload during a variety of behavioral tasks (SP Marshall, Aviation, Space, & Environmental Medicine 78: B165-75). The present study utilized changes in pupil dilation to determine whether enhanced performance in individuals with ASD is associated with level of cognitive effort.

Objectives: To examine pupil response (reflecting cognitive workload) and its association with EFT for both children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children.

Methods: Participants were 10 high-ability adolescents with ASD and 10 age- and IQ-matched TD individuals. The EFT was composed of 40 test and 30 baseline trials and a complex geometric figure was displayed on each trial. In the test condition a target shape was hidden within a complex figure, while in the control condition the target shape was highlighted. Binocular eye-tracking data were collected for the duration of the experiment.

Results: There was a significant group by condition interaction for the median response time (RT). Individuals with ASD had significantly faster RTs in the test condition, but equivalent RTs in the baseline condition relative to TD individuals. For measures of pupil dilation, there was no main effect of group, or interaction between group and any factor.

Conclusions: While ASD participants demonstrated accelerated RT in the EFT, there was no difference between ASD and TD groups for pupil dilation. This suggests that cognitive effort and perceived task difficulty for the EFT do not differ substantially between ASD and TD children. Superior performance by individuals with ASD may be instead related to differences in early perceptual processes.

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