Dept. of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, 3584 CS Utrecht, the Netherlands; Dept. of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 BT Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Neuropsychologia. 2019 Apr;127:1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.02.005. Epub 2019 Feb 12.
Atypical visual segmentation, affecting object perception, might contribute to face processing problems in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The current study investigated impairments in visual segmentation of faces in ASD. Thirty participants (ASD: 16; Control: 14) viewed texture-defined faces, houses, and homogeneous images, while electroencephalographic and behavioral responses were recorded. The ASD group showed slower face-segmentation related brain activity and longer segmentation reaction times than the control group, but no difference in house-segmentation related activity or behavioral performance. Furthermore, individual differences in face-segmentation but not house-segmentation correlated with score on the Autism Quotient. Segmentation is thus selectively impaired for faces in ASD, and relates to the degree of ASD traits. Face segmentation relates to recurrent connectivity from the fusiform face area (FFA) to the visual cortex. These findings thus suggest that atypical connectivity from the FFA might contribute to delayed face processing in ASD.
非典型的视觉分割，影响物体感知，可能导致自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中的面部处理问题。本研究调查了 ASD 中面部视觉分割的损伤。30 名参与者（ASD：16；对照组：14）观看了纹理定义的面孔、房屋和均匀图像，同时记录了脑电图和行为反应。与对照组相比，ASD 组的面孔分割相关脑活动较慢，分割反应时间较长，但在房屋分割相关活动或行为表现上没有差异。此外，面部分割的个体差异与自闭症商数的得分相关，而房屋分割则没有相关性。因此，ASD 中面部的分割会选择性地受损，并且与 ASD 特征的程度有关。分割与从梭状回面孔区（FFA）到视觉皮层的反复连接有关。这些发现表明，FFA 的异常连接可能导致 ASD 中的面部处理延迟。
