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Brief Report: Coherent Motion Processing in Autism: Is Dot Lifetime an Important Parameter?

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Abstract

Contrasting reports of reduced and intact sensitivity to coherent motion in autistic individuals may be attributable to stimulus parameters. Here, we investigated whether dot lifetime contributes to elevated thresholds in children with autism. We presented a standard motion coherence task to 31 children with autism and 31 typical children, with both limited and unlimited lifetime conditions. Overall, children had higher thresholds in the limited lifetime condition than in the unlimited lifetime condition. However, children with autism were affected by this manipulation to the same extent as typical children and were equally sensitive to coherent motion. Our results suggest that dot lifetime is not a critical stimulus parameter and speak against pervasive difficulties in coherent motion perception in children with autism.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. Nine children with autism and four TD children had previously participated in the study reported by Manning et al. (2013). Excluding these participants did not change the pattern of results, so these participants were retained in the dataset to increase statistical power.

  2. Twenty children with autism met criteria for an autism spectrum condition on both the SCQ and ADOS. We included all participants who met criteria on at least one of the measures in order to allow comparability with the results of Manning et al. (2013). Notwithstanding, the same pattern of results was obtained when excluding participants who did not meet criteria on both measures.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the families and schools who participated in this research, and to members of CRAE who assisted with recruitment and testing. C.M. was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council PhD studentship and E.P. was supported by a Medical Research Council Grant (MR/J013145/1). Research at CRAE is supported by The Clothworkers’ Foundation and Pears Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE), UCL Institute of Education, University College London, 55-59 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0NU, UK

    Catherine Manning & Elizabeth Pellicano

  2. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, 9 South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK

    Catherine Manning

  3. Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF, UK

    Tony Charman

  4. School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Nedlands, 6009, Australia

    Elizabeth Pellicano

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  1. Catherine Manning
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Correspondence to Catherine Manning.

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Manning, C., Charman, T. & Pellicano, E. Brief Report: Coherent Motion Processing in Autism: Is Dot Lifetime an Important Parameter?. J Autism Dev Disord 45, 2252–2258 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-015-2365-1

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