Ben-Yosef Dekel, Anaki David, Golan Ofer
Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 5290002, Israel.
Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 5290002, Israel.
Autism Res. 2017 Mar;10(3):520-530. doi: 10.1002/aur.1676. Epub 2016 Aug 3.
The ability of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to process context has long been debated: According to the Weak Central Coherence theory, ASD is characterized by poor global processing, and consequently-poor context processing. In contrast, the Social Cognition theory argues individuals with ASD will present difficulties only in social context processing. The complexity theory of autism suggests context processing in ASD will depend on task complexity. The current study examined this controversy through two priming tasks, one presenting human stimuli (facial expressions) and the other presenting non-human stimuli (animal faces). Both tasks presented visual targets, preceded by congruent, incongruent, or neutral auditory primes. Local and global processing were examined by presenting the visual targets in three spatial frequency conditions: High frequency, low frequency, and broadband. Tasks were administered to 16 adolescents with high functioning ASD and 16 matched typically developing adolescents. Reaction time and accuracy were measured for each task in each condition. Results indicated that individuals with ASD processed context for both human and non-human stimuli, except in one condition, in which human stimuli had to be processed globally (i.e., target presented in low frequency). The task demands presented in this condition, and the performance deficit shown in the ASD group as a result, could be understood in terms of cognitive overload. These findings provide support for the complexity theory of autism and extend it. Our results also demonstrate how associative priming could support intact context processing of human and non-human stimuli in individuals with ASD. Autism Res 2017, 10: 520-530. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者处理情境的能力长期以来一直存在争议：根据弱中央连贯性理论，ASD的特征是整体加工能力差，因此情境加工能力也差。相比之下，社会认知理论认为，ASD患者仅在社会情境加工中会遇到困难。自闭症的复杂性理论表明，ASD患者的情境加工将取决于任务的复杂性。当前的研究通过两项启动任务对这一争议进行了检验，一项任务呈现人类刺激（面部表情），另一项任务呈现非人类刺激（动物面孔）。两项任务都呈现视觉目标，在目标之前呈现一致、不一致或中性的听觉启动刺激。通过在三种空间频率条件下呈现视觉目标来检验局部和整体加工：高频、低频和宽带。对16名高功能ASD青少年和16名匹配的发育正常青少年进行了任务测试。测量了每种条件下每项任务的反应时间和准确性。结果表明，ASD患者能够处理人类和非人类刺激的情境，只有在一种情况下除外，即必须对人类刺激进行整体加工时（即低频呈现目标）。在这种情况下呈现的任务要求以及ASD组因此表现出的性能缺陷，可以从认知过载的角度来理解。这些发现为自闭症的复杂性理论提供了支持并对其进行了扩展。我们的结果还证明了联想启动如何能够支持ASD患者对人类和非人类刺激进行完整的情境加工。《自闭症研究》2017年，10:520 - 530。©2016国际自闭症研究协会，威利期刊公司
