Intact Susceptibility to Visual Illusions in Autistic Individuals.
Yarden Mazuz, Bat-Sheva Hadad, Tzvi Ganel
PMID 40259703WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic individuals and non-autistic individuals were equally fooled by visual size illusions.
Susceptibility and size discrimination did not differ between groups, so these results do not support reduced susceptibility to visual illusions in autism.
Key findings
01Autistic and non-autistic participants showed similar susceptibility to the visual illusions tested.
02Bayesian tests favored no group difference for each illusion.
03Autistic participants had slower response times on the Ebbinghaus and Height-width illusions, but the authors say this may reflect the task design rather than illusion susceptibility.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The autistic group was recruited from a community and a center for adults with communication difficulties, so it may not represent all autistic people. The study tested only three visual illusions of size. Fourteen non-autistic participants were not tested on the autism traits and intelligence measures because of technical difficulties. The goodness-of-fit rule removed participants from some illusion analyses, so the number analysed changed across tasks. The sample was about 40 in each group, and the authors say this prevents strong conclusions about correlations. Response time differences on the Ebbinghaus and height-width illusions may be due to the task design, because responses were not recorded during the initial stimulus presentation.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Funding was from the Israel Science Foundation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that autistic people have typical sensory processing overall. It tested only visual illusions of size, and the slower response times may reflect task design rather than perception.