Evidence that non-social autism traits in the general population are correlated with spatial processing of biological motion
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
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in: Visual Cognition, Jahrgang 33, Nr. 5, 2025, S. 311-318.
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidence that non-social autism traits in the general population are correlated with spatial processing of biological motion
AU - Cracco, Emiel
AU - Oomen, Danna
AU - Wiersema, Jan R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Biological motion perception theories of autism hold that differences in how biological motion is processed help explain the social difficulties experienced by individuals with autism. However, evidence for this theory is mixed, with some studies finding such differences, but others not. Recent meta-analytical work suggests that autism may be specifically associated with differences in the temporal processing of biological motion. In the current study, we correlated autism traits in the general population (N = 193) with performance on a biological motion perception task while manipulating both spatial and temporal stimulus properties by means of spatial and temporal scrambling. In contrast to our hypothesis, we found no correlation between the effect of temporal scrambling and autism traits (operationalized as AQ scores). We did, however, find a correlation between the subscale attention to detail and the effect of spatial scrambling. This suggests that autism-related differences in local-global processing are associated with the degree to which spatial information is used to bind local motion signals in a global movement percept. However, correlations were small and further research will be needed to confirm this finding.
AB - Biological motion perception theories of autism hold that differences in how biological motion is processed help explain the social difficulties experienced by individuals with autism. However, evidence for this theory is mixed, with some studies finding such differences, but others not. Recent meta-analytical work suggests that autism may be specifically associated with differences in the temporal processing of biological motion. In the current study, we correlated autism traits in the general population (N = 193) with performance on a biological motion perception task while manipulating both spatial and temporal stimulus properties by means of spatial and temporal scrambling. In contrast to our hypothesis, we found no correlation between the effect of temporal scrambling and autism traits (operationalized as AQ scores). We did, however, find a correlation between the subscale attention to detail and the effect of spatial scrambling. This suggests that autism-related differences in local-global processing are associated with the degree to which spatial information is used to bind local motion signals in a global movement percept. However, correlations were small and further research will be needed to confirm this finding.
KW - Autism traits
KW - biological motion perception
KW - spatial processing
KW - temporal processing
KW - Psychology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105022299028&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13506285.2025.2588232
DO - 10.1080/13506285.2025.2588232
M3 - Journal articles
VL - 33
SP - 311
EP - 318
JO - Visual Cognition
JF - Visual Cognition
SN - 1350-6285
IS - 5
ER -