Elsevier

Brain and Cognition

Volume 82, Issue 2, July 2013, Pages 213-218
Brain and Cognition

Deeper attentional masking by lateral objects in children with autism

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2013.04.006Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We investigated the spatio-temporal dynamic of visual processing in autism (ASD).

  • To do this we employed an attentional masking paradigm in ASD and controls.

  • The ASD group had no impairment when the mask appeared in the same target location.

  • The ASD group had stronger masking when the mask appeared in lateral position.

  • Results are discussed in the light of reentrant theory and atypical connectivity.

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often associated with a detail-oriented perception and overselective attention in visual tasks, such as visual search and crowding. These results were obtained manipulating exclusively the spatial properties of the stimuli: few is known about the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual processing in ASD. In this study we employed an attentional masking (AM) paradigm comparing children with ASD and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) controls. The AM effect refers to an impaired identification of a target followed by a competitive masking object at different proximities in space and time. We found that ASD and TD groups did not differ in the AM effect provoked by the competitive object displayed in the same position of the target. In contrast, children with ASD showed a deeper and prolonged interference than the TD group when the masking object was displayed in the lateral position. These psychophysical results suggest that the inefficient attentional selection in ASD depends on the spatio-temporal interaction between competitive visual objects. These evidence are discussed in the light of the ASD altered neural connectivity hypothesis and the reentrant theory of perception.

Introduction

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental condition characterized by abnormalities in communication, social interaction and presence of markedly restricted interests and stereotyped behaviors (American Psychiatric Association. Task Force on DSM-IV, 1994).

Although the dysfunctions in social cognition and communication are typically considered the “core” deficits in ASD individuals, a growing number of evidence consistently reports abnormalities in low-level visual attention and perception (e.g., Dakin and Frith, 2005, Happé, 1999, Mottron et al., 2006 for reviews). The idea that atypical visual processing can account for the core deficits of the disorder is one of the most intriguing aspects of the current research in autism (Mazer, 2011, Vlamings et al., 2010). According to the neuroconstructivist approach (see Johnson, 2011, Karmiloff-Smith, 1998 for reviews) abnormalities in low-level attention and perception could deviate the typical developmental trajectories and cause impairments in high-level cognitive domains (e.g., Elsabbagh et al., 2012; Facoetti et al., 2010, Franceschini et al., 2012, Franceschini et al., in press, Mundy et al., 1987).

Attentional impairments are probably the most consistently reported neurocognitive deficit in ASD (see Allen and Courchesne, 2001, Ames and Fletcher-Watson, 2010 for reviews). In the early 1970s, Lovaas and Schreibman (1971) showed that children with autism responded to a restricted range of environmental stimuli, suggesting that their attention was excessively focused. The authors explained these findings in terms of a “stimulus overselectivity”. More recently, this idea was corroborated by a specific impairment in zooming-out the focus of spatial attention (Mann and Walker, 2003, Ronconi and Basso et al., 2013, Ronconi and Gori et al., 2013, Ronconi et al., 2012). Stimulus overselectivity can be coupled also with a strong resolution for the details. Compared to typically developing peers, individuals affected by ASD manifest better performance in local elements discrimination involving static visual stimuli, as in visual search tasks (Almeida et al., 2010, O’Riordan et al., 2001), in the Embedded Figure Test (Jolliffe and Baron-Cohen, 1997, Manjaly et al., 2007), in perceptual load tasks (Bayliss and Kritikos, 2011, Remington et al., 2009) and in visual crowding (Baldassi et al., 2009). An enhanced visual processing of detailed information preference in ASD was also demonstrated with elettrophysiological recordings (Pei et al., 2009; Vlamings et al., 2010). The local bias in autisin perceptual load tasks in perceptual load tasks m seems to occur also for dynamic visual information (Chen et al., 2012).

However, to date, few is known about the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual processing in ASD. A powerful tool to investigate this aspect is the backward masking, which consists in a reduction of a target’s visibility caused by the subsequent presentation of a mask (see Breitmeyer and Oğmen, 2000, Enns and di Lollo, 2000 for reviews; see also Hall, West, & Szatmari, 2007 for backward masking for faces in ASD). Spatio-temporal interactions between target and mask provide valuable insights into the mechanics of visual processing and give information about the spatial range of influence between visual stimuli (Breitmeyer, 1984; see Herzog, 2008 for a review) and the time required to form a percept (Averbach & Coriell, 1961). Psychophysical studies classically identified two main types of backward masking: (i) the pattern masking, which occurs when the contours of both mask and target are spatially superimposed and, (ii) metacontrast masking,which occurs when the mask contours are presented closely adjacent, but not overlapping, to the target contours (see Breitmeyer and Oğmen, 2000, Enns and di Lollo, 2000 for reviews). More recently, it has been proposed a particular type of visual masking in which the role of spatial and temporal attention is fundamental, namely the attentional masking (AM) (Atchley et al., 2002, Dispaldro et al., in press, Facoetti et al., 2008, Kavcic and Duffy, 2003, Ruffino et al., 2010). AM refers to the reduction in the visibility of a target followed by a second object, which acts as a competitive stimulus (note that target and masking objects have to be similar to maximize the effect; Ruffino et al., 2010). The labile nature of the attentional selection in the first stage of visual processing plays a crucial role in the AM. The automatic processing of the second competitive object draws resources away from the identification of the target (Potter, Staub, & O’Connor, 2002). Consequently, if the spatio-temporal deployment of selective attention is delayed or inefficient, a powerful AM effect will be observed, whereas if spatio-temporal attention can be rapidly focused onto the target, AM will be markedly reduced (e.g., Enns, 2004; Jiang & Chun, 2001). AM effect results, indeed, stronger when the target and the masking objects are presented in the same spatial position, and decreases when the masking object is displayed in lateral position (Ruffino et al., 2010). Similarly, a powerful AM is observed when the temporal gap between the target and the masking objects is short, while the target object is more easily identified as the time interval increases (Kavcic & Duffy, 2003). All these characteristics make the AM effect similar in several aspects to the Object Substitution Masking, which occurs when a briefly presented target object is followed by different elements (e.g., four dots) surrounding, but not touching, the target object (Enns & Di Lollo, 1997).

To investigate the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual processing in ASD, we measured the AM effect in children with ASD and typically developing (TD) controls. On the one hand, studying the effect of the masking object presented in the central position (same as the target) aims to verify the efficiency of the temporal component of visual processing. On the other hand, when the masking object appeared in the lateral position, two alternative results are possible: according to the impairment in broadening the focus of spatial attention (Mann and Walker, 2003, Ronconi and Basso et al., 2013, Ronconi and Gori et al., 2013), masking objects in the lateral position should lead to a lower interference. Conversely, another possibility is that the more efficient extraction of local information (Baldassi et al., 2009, Jolliffe and Baron-Cohen, 1997, O’Riordan et al., 2001) should lead to a deeper masking for laterally presented objects. Most of the literature about visual processing in ASD was obtained manipulating exclusively the spatial properties of the stimuli. However, the interaction of the individual with the environment is based on the dynamic relationship between stimuli in both spatial and temporal domains. The main advantage of the current study is to give a more ecological understanding of the nature of visual processing in ASD.

Section snippets

Participants

Twenty-five children took part in the experiment. The ASD group comprised 12 children. All the participants with ASD were included according to the following criteria: (i) full scale IQ > 70 as measured by the Italian version of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Revised (WISC-R, Wechsler, 1993); (ii) absence of gross behavioral problems; (iii) normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing; (iv) absence of drug therapy; and (v) absence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder on the

Results

O1 identification mean accuracy was considered as the dependent variable for the analysis. In order to test the existence of a pure temporal (i.e., central object competition) versus a spatio-temporal (i.e., lateral object competition) processing deficit in ASD, we implemented two separate analyses of variance (ANOVAs).

ANOVA performed when O2 appeared in the central position had a 4 × 2 design. SOA (40, 80, 200 and 1000 ms) was considered as within subjects factor and Group (ASD vs. TD) as between

Discussion

The aim of the present study was to investigate the spatio-temporal dynamics of visual processing in children with ASD, employing an AM paradigm. Participants were asked to discriminate a first target object, followed by a second competitive object that they had to ignore. The target appeared always in the central position, while the masking object could appear either in central or in lateral position, at different time intervals (i.e., SOAs). Based on previous findings (Facoetti et al., 2008,

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from University of Padua (“Progetto di Ateneo 2009 and 2011” to A.F. and “Assegni di Ricerca 2009 and 2011” to S.G.). The contributions of staff members of “E. Medea” Scientific Institute as well as of children and their families are gratefully acknowledged. We thank Laura Zampini and Barbara Urbani for their help in recruitment and clinical characterization of participants.

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