The local, global, and neural aspects of visuospatial processing in autism spectrum disorders

DOI

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.10.013

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

12-1-2013

Publication Title

Neuropsychologia

Volume

51

Issue

14

First Page

2995

Last Page

3003

ISSN

283932

Keywords

Autism, Block design task, FMRI, Global-local processing

Abstract

Behavioral studies have documented a relative advantage in some aspects of visuospatial cognition in autism although it is not consistently found in higher functioning individuals with autism. The purpose of this functional neuroimaging study was to examine the neural activity in high functioning individuals with autism while they performed a block design task that systematically varied with regard to whether a global pattern was present. Participants were 14 adults with high-functioning autism and 14 age and IQ matched typical controls. The task was to identify a missing block in target figures which had either an obvious global shape or was an arbitrary array of blocks. Behavioral results showed intact, but not superior, performance in our participants with autism. A key group difference was that the participants with autism showed reliably greater activation in occipital and parietal regions in both tasks suggesting an increased reliance of the autism group on posterior brain areas to mediate visuospatial tasks. Thus, increased reliance on relatively posterior brain regions in itself may not guarantee superior performance as seen in the present study. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Open Access

Green Accepted

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