L8 - Differences in perception in autism spectrum disorder

Question 1

Why be interested in perception?

Answer 1

• Interpretation of sensory input e.g what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch
• ToM and EF are higher order mental processes
• Perception is a fundamental building block of more complex cognitive and behavioural processes

Question 2

What was the hyp for enhanced perceptual functioning?

Answer 2

Hyp: perceptual processing is superior in autistic people = hard to control and disrupts the development of other behaviours and abilities

Question 3

What was the pitch discrimination task?

Answer 3

• Same/different judgement (same pitch or not)
• High/low categorisation
• Autistic individuals showed superior performance
• 12 autistic adolescents and 12 controls (small N = lots of types of autism)
• Both groups were intellectually high functioning (not looking at other dimensions - just auditory, different areas of sound to explore)

Question 4

What was the auditory discrimination study?

Answer 4

• 72 autistic adolescents and 48 comparison adolescents with wide range of intellectual ability (accessible to all)
• Intensity Discrimination task: which dino makes a louder sound
• Duration discrimination task: which dino makes a longer sound
• Frequency discrimination task: which dino makes a higher sound
• 1/5 autistic adolescents had enhanced frequency discrimination
• They had average intellectual ability and delayed language = language development impaired by over-focus on perceptual cues

Question 5

Is Enhanced Perceptual Functioning universal/unique/ep?

Answer 5

Universal: No, there is evidence of impaired as well as enhanced perceptual focusing

Unique: Largely untested in other developmental disorders = meant only for autism

EP:
- Good at explaining sensory sensitivities e.g hypersensitivity
- Relies on developmental knock on effect of EPF on higher order social and cognitive abilities to explain the majority of autistic behaviours BUT more research is needed to establish these links

Question 6

What is Weak Central Coherence?

Answer 6

• Central coherence = natural tendency to process stimuli as a whole
• Weak = bias for processing the parts of any stimulus at the expense of the global whole

Question 7

How is Weak Central Coherence seen in autism?

Answer 7

• Hyp: Autistic people have a local processing bias at the expense of processing the whole (not seeing the bigger picture)
• Superiority for perceiving details and features = different cognitive style

Question 8

What were the embedded figures test?

Answer 8

• Autistic children are better and quicker at finding the embedded figure than the non-autistic children
• Also less distracted by the whole image

Question 9

What is the planning/drawing test?

Answer 9

Autistic children draw in an atypical fragmented way and focus on details

Question 10

How is Weak Central Coherence universal/unique/EP?

Answer 10

Universal: Not all autistic children show evidence of WCC
Unique: Untested but evidence that individuals with anorexia and Williams syndrome also show WCC
EP:
- Does not explain all symptoms
- Interferes with social interactions e.g focusing on an item of clothing disrupting recognition of facial emotion
- Can explain some restricted and repetitive behaviours e.g a lot of attention

Question 11

What is Atypical Social Orienting? (ASO)

Answer 11

• Hyp: autistic individuals show reduced orienting to social information, in face and eyes = fail to become face experts = impaired ability to perceive face identity and emotional expression

Question 12

What were studies about atypical looking to the face?

Answer 12

• Adolescents and young adults with/out autism filmed watching a film
• Eye tracker monitored eye gaze
• Autistic group showed significantly less looking to the eyes and focused more on mouths, bodies and objects
• Increased looking to objects correlated with poorer social skills

Question 13

Study about atypical looking at eyes

Answer 13

• Fixation cross led to first focus on face being on eyes or mouth
• Eye gaze monitored
• Non-autistic group showed significantly more shifts towards the eyes than away
• Autistic groups showed significantly more shifts away from the eyes rather than towards the eyes
• Suggests active avoidance of eye gaze and not just a lack of orienting

Question 14

Study describing typical looking to the eyes:

Answer 14

• Told to make a choice on emotion that person had
• Eye tracking focused on eye/mouth
• Autistic adults showed no difference in the amount of looking to the eyes and mouth when making emotion judgements

Question 15

Is ASO universal/unique/EP

Answer 15

Universal: Many studies do not show impaired looking to the face/eyes in autistic people
Unique: Individuals with Williams syndrome also show impaired looking at faces, although there are syndrome specific differences
EP:
- ASO aligns well with social communication difficulties seen in autism
- Does not adequately explain restricted and repetitive behaviours

Question 16

What is the multiple deficit account?

Answer 16

• Proposes that the behavioural symptoms have distinct aetiologies
• Single atypicality accounts make an assumption that the core behaviours of autism occur together more often that would be expected by chance as a result of a single underlying aetiology
• Different genetics = different atypicality = different symptoms = different autism

Question 17

Issues with the whole topic:

Answer 17

• Deficit model suggests there is something that does not work/ is less than
• Other theories focus more on difference or enhanced abilities BUT don’t tend to focus on areas of overlap between autistic and non-autistic people
• Implications of research focus = could the dominant neurotypical perspective drive implicit assumptions of autism as a dysfunction

Question 18

What is the neurodiversity perspective

Answer 18

• Considers all brains as equal and frames neurodivergent individuals as different and not impaired

Question 19

Study that describes when 2 people with ToM difficulty to converse?

Answer 19

• Communication difficulties are more pronounced across the neurotype boundary than within
• (autistic and non conversing)

Question 20

What is Support for Multiple Deficit Hypothesis?

Answer 20

1) If one type of cognition is seen to be responsible = correlation should occur = is not seen in twin studies = limited genetic overlap
2) Heritable: broader phenotype = genetics are independent as diff types of autism in the family
3) Neural connections - social brain network is active when another part is not and that part is responsible for the repetitive and resistant behaviours