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Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 5/2016

28-09-2013 | Perception In Autism

The Autism-Spectrum Quotient and Visual Search: Shallow and Deep Autistic Endophenotypes

Auteurs: B. L. Gregory, K. C. Plaisted-Grant

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders | Uitgave 5/2016

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Abstract

A high Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) score (Baron-Cohen et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 31(1):5–17, 2001) is increasingly used as a proxy in empirical studies of perceptual mechanisms in autism. Several investigations have assessed perception in non-autistic people measured for AQ, claiming the same relationship exists between performance on perceptual tasks in high-AQ individuals as observed in autism. We question whether the similarity in performance by high-AQ individuals and autistics reflects the same underlying perceptual cause in the context of two visual search tasks administered to a large sample of typical individuals assessed for AQ. Our results indicate otherwise and that deploying the AQ as a proxy for autism introduces unsubstantiated assumptions about high-AQ individuals, the endophenotypes they express, and their relationship to Autistic Spectrum Conditions (ASC) individuals.
Voetnoten
1
The Ganong effect (Ganong 1980) refers to a top-down change in phonetic categorisation such that the percept is a known word as opposed to a nonword.
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
The Autism-Spectrum Quotient and Visual Search: Shallow and Deep Autistic Endophenotypes
Auteurs
B. L. Gregory
K. C. Plaisted-Grant
Publicatiedatum
28-09-2013
Uitgeverij
Springer US
Gepubliceerd in
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders / Uitgave 5/2016
Print ISSN: 0162-3257
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-3432
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1951-3

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