Examining Relationships Between Perceptual Bias and Autistic Traits Using Typically Developing Individuals

Background:  

A core feature of autism spectrum disorders is a detail oriented

perceptual processing style with such individuals tending to be more

preoccupied with object features rather than wholes. Typically, individuals
can more rapidly respond to the “big picture” or global aspects of a
stimulus compared to the fine details or local features. This is referred to
as global precedence.

Objectives:  

The current study investigated whether individuals

with sub-clinical autistic traits, as measured by the Autism Spectrum
Quotient, show a reduction in the global precedence.

Methods:  

Participants completed a speeded letter task with Navon hierarchical stimuli and the Cambridge Face
Memory Test for Faces.

Results:  

All participants responded faster to compatible trails over incompatible, and to global over local stimuli. 

However, in global, compatible trials there was a negative trend between AQ and accuracy. As AQ increased accuracy decreased.

Conclusions:

Results were consistent with suggestions that individuals typically exhibit a form of global precedence, responding to global, “big picture” aspects of a stimulus faster than local details.

The main effect between compatibility and accuracy was to be expected because individuals generally respond faster to compatible stimuli than incompatible, as we see in Stroop and other classic visual tests.

One possibility to explain the negative trend between AQ and accuracy ing global, compatible trials is that the higher a participant’s AQ score the less he/she benefitted from the compatible condition. If they are processing the local features, small letters, first anyway, then the small and large letters being the same would not produce a significant advantage. 

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