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Hierarchical Processing in ASD is Driven by Exaggerated Salience Effects, not Local Bias

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Abstract

The role of relative salience in processing of hierarchical stimuli in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was examined in this study. Participants with ASD and typically developing controls performed a Navon letters task under conditions of global salience, local salience or equal salience of both levels. Results revealed no group differences in level of processing (global or local) and no local bias for ASD. Rather, both groups showed better performance when targets were more salient compared to when distractors were more salient. Importantly, participants with ASD exhibited increased sensitivity to salience at the distractor level. We conclude that inconsistent findings in the context of global/local processing in ASD may stem from such exaggerated salience effects.

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Notes

  1. All of the participants were born before 2013 and were diagnosed according to the existing DSM version at the time.

  2. Mostly, only 1–2 trials were excluded (on rare occasions there were three excluded trials) in a block of 48 trials, but never more than that). This was the case for all of the participants, in all conditions, in both groups.

  3. An additional statistical analysis with 'Raven's Progressive Matrices' scores as a co-variate (ANCOVA) replicated the significant level, size and group interaction on IES that were obtained in the original analysis.

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Funding

This study was funded by Israel Science Foundation (ISF) Grant No. 1595/11.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, P.O.B. 39040, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Ayelet Baisa & Lilach Shalev

  2. School of Psychology, Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Carmel Mevorach

  3. School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Lilach Shalev

Authors
  1. Ayelet Baisa
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  2. Carmel Mevorach
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  3. Lilach Shalev
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Contributions

This study was prepared from doctoral dissertation of AB who conceived of the study, designed collected and analyzed the data, and drafted the manuscript; CM participated in the interpretation and conceptualization of the data; LS conceived of the study, and participated in its design, interpretation and conceptualization of the data and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ayelet Baisa.

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All procedures with human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Tel Aviv university ethics committee and by the Ministry of Education’s Chief Scientist and with the 1964 Heisinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Baisa, A., Mevorach, C. & Shalev, L. Hierarchical Processing in ASD is Driven by Exaggerated Salience Effects, not Local Bias. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 666–676 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04578-1

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