Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA.
Autism Res. 2009 Dec;2(6):348-58. doi: 10.1002/aur.101.
Individuals with autism have an atypical pattern of visual processing. Various studies have provided evidence that individuals with autism perceive the details of stimuli before the gestalt, the reverse of the typical pattern of visual processing. This study used the Rey Osterreith Complex Figure (ROCF) task and an objective scoring system to examine local/global processing approaches to its reproduction in 37 individuals diagnosed with high-functioning autism (HFA) compared to 49 age-, IQ-, and gender-matched typically developing controls (TD). The sample was divided into children (aged 8-14 years) and adolescents/adults (aged 15-47 years) to assess age effects. Results showed no difference in overall performance on the ROCF between HFA and TD children. TD participants displayed improved organizational and planning skills with age and a shift to global processing approaches, but there were no differences in performance between children and adolescents/adults with HFA. There was no evidence of enhanced local processing in either HFA group. These findings suggest that HFA individuals with average IQ scores do not have the clinically demonstrable evidence of the enhanced local processing thought to reflect increased local brain connectivity in more severely autistic individuals. The deficient global processing of the HFA adults reflects dependence of performance on impaired strategic problem-solving abilities, which has been demonstrated to result from under development of neural connectivity between visuo-spatial and frontal brain regions in HFA adults.
自闭症个体的视觉处理模式存在异常。多项研究提供了证据表明，自闭症个体在感知到刺激的整体之前，会先感知到刺激的细节，这与典型的视觉处理模式相反。本研究使用 Rey-Osterreith 复杂图形（ROCF）任务和客观评分系统，比较了 37 名被诊断为高功能自闭症（HFA）的个体与 49 名年龄、智商和性别匹配的典型发育对照者（TD）在其复制过程中的局部/整体处理方法。该样本分为儿童（8-14 岁）和青少年/成年人（15-47 岁）两组，以评估年龄效应。结果表明，HFA 和 TD 儿童在 ROCF 整体表现上没有差异。TD 参与者随着年龄的增长，表现出组织和计划技能的提高，并转向整体处理方法，但 HFA 儿童和青少年/成年人之间的表现没有差异。HFA 组均没有增强局部处理的证据。这些发现表明，智商分数正常的 HFA 个体没有表现出增强的局部处理的临床证据，而增强的局部处理被认为反映了更严重自闭症个体中局部脑连接的增加。HFA 成年人的整体处理能力不足反映了他们的表现依赖于受损的策略解决问题的能力，这已被证明是由于 HFA 成年人的视觉空间和额叶大脑区域之间的神经连接发育不足所致。
