Perceptual characteristics of peripheral vision in children with autism

Abstract

The present study examined the recognition of numerical stimuli briefly presented in the peripheral and the central (foveal) visual fields of children with autism. The participants were 5 children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and 10 typically developing (TD) children of similar chronological age. The stimuli were number strings presented on a personal computer screen for 160 msec in the position of the fixation point (foveal condition) or in the peripheral visual field (retinal eccentricity of 16°) in one of the eight radial positions selected randomly (peripheral condition). The participants' task was to report the number of stimuli. The results showed that there were no significant differences in the mean response times between the TD and ASD groups. However, the mean percentage of correct answers in the ASD group was significantly higher than in the TD group for the peripheral condition. These results suggest that the effective visual field of the ASD group is expanded compared with the TD group. We discussed the relationships between perceptual characteristics and cognitive processes particular to ASD children.