Ana Maria Abreu, Joana Soares, Scania de Schonen and Francesca Happé

Aim: Research on Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has mainly focused on the study of social behavioral deficits (e.g. imitation, eye gaze, play, etc.). These studies have emphasized the high-level impairments that lead to abnormal social interaction in ASD. However, as important as the study of social behavior in ASD, is research on lower-level processes that might contribute to the emergence and development of the atypical social behaviors that characterize this condition. Perceptual differences constitute one such factor. Here, we aim to investigate the possible influence of specific visual motion perception deficits in conceptual processing.

Materials and Methods: We compared the performance of children with ASD, with that of children with moderate to severe learning disorders (MLD) or typical development (TD) on a series of computerized tasks. These tasks assessed motion detection in non-social and socially embedded backgrounds or contexts.

Results: The results provide evidence for speed-selective impairments in processing socially embedded targets in ASD.