Updating Expectations About Unexpected Object Motion in Infants Later Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Sheila Achermann, Terje Falck-Ytter, Sven Bölte and 1 others
PMID 33517525WHAT IT FOUND
Infants later diagnosed with autism tracked unexpected object motion and adapted to it just as well as neurotypical infants.
Basic visual prediction of moving objects appears intact in early autism, suggesting prediction difficulties may be specific to social contexts.
Key findings
01Infants with later autism showed similar gaze shift latencies and adaptation rates to unexpected object motion as neurotypical infants.
02Pupillary responses to unexpected object motion did not differ between infants with later autism and neurotypical infants.
03The study found no evidence that basic predictive processing of non-social visual motion is impaired in infants later diagnosed with autism.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample size of infants later diagnosed with autism was small (n=14 at enrollment, n=12 in final analyses), which limits the statistical power to detect subtle differences. The task involved non-social, physical stimuli (a moving ball). The results may not generalize to social prediction tasks, such as predicting where a person will look or act. The study only assessed infants up to 18 months. Prediction difficulties might emerge later in development or in more complex environments. All infants saw the same stimulus trajectory, so the study cannot assess how infants adapt to a variety of different unexpected events.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Vetenskapsrådet, and Uppsala University. No conflicts of interest were declared by the authors.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that individuals with autism have no prediction difficulties. This study only tested basic, non-social visual prediction of object motion. It does not rule out difficulties in predicting social cues or complex, dynamic environments, which are areas where autism symptoms typically manifest.