Falter-Wagner Christine M, Bloch Carola, Robles Marta, Horch Lea, Vogeley Kai, Georgescu Alexandra Livia
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2022 Jul 25;13:857630. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.857630. eCollection 2022.
Figure-disembedding is one of the most discussed visuo-cognitive functions, in which individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been reported to outperform non-autistic individuals. A local processing bias has been assumed to underlie such superior performance patterns. The aim of the current study is to investigate whether processing preferences can be modified by procedural priming.
The current study used a procedural priming task (Navon figures) to induce more local or global processing in 25 autistic and 21 typically developing (TD) control participants, using hierarchical figures preceding the figure-disembedding task.
Participants with ASD outperformed non-autistic individuals in the unprimed baseline task version. The performance was not modulated by priming in either direction (toward a local or global processing style) in both groups. However, the performance of TD control participants was improved by training to the same level as that observed in the ASD group.
Figure-disembedding performance in ASD is superior to that in TD control participants and robust against procedural priming or training. In contrast, performance in the TD control group can be improved up to the level of the ASD group. Any studies reporting superiority in individuals with ASD in figure-disembedding should consider training effects when evaluating group differences.
图形分离是讨论最多的视觉认知功能之一，据报道，自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者在该功能上的表现优于非自闭症患者。一种局部加工偏向被认为是这种优越表现模式的基础。本研究的目的是调查加工偏好是否可以通过程序启动来改变。
本研究使用程序启动任务（纳冯图形），通过在图形分离任务之前呈现分层图形，在25名自闭症患者和21名发育正常（TD）的对照参与者中诱导更多的局部或整体加工。
在未启动的基线任务版本中，ASD患者的表现优于非自闭症个体。两组的表现均未因任何一个方向（朝向局部或整体加工风格）的启动而受到调节。然而，通过训练，TD对照参与者的表现提高到了与ASD组观察到的水平相同。
ASD患者的图形分离表现优于TD对照参与者，并且对程序启动或训练具有抗性。相比之下，TD对照组的表现可以提高到ASD组的水平。任何报道ASD患者在图形分离方面具有优越性的研究在评估组间差异时都应考虑训练效果。
