Visual Motion Prediction and Verbal False Memory Performance in Autistic Children

Abstract

Recent theoretical accounts propose that atypical predictive processing can explain the diverse cognitive and behavioral features associated with autism, and that difficulties in making predictions may be related to reduced contextual processing. In this pre‐registered study, 30 autistic children aged 6–14 years and 30 typically developing children matched in age and non‐verbal IQ completed visual extrapolation and false memory tasks to assess predictive abilities and contextual processing, respectively. In the visual extrapolation tasks, children were asked to predict when an occluded car would reach the end of a road and when an occluded set of lights would fill up a grid. Autistic children made predictions that were just as precise as those made by typically developing children, across a range of occlusion durations. In the false memory task, autistic and typically developing children did not differ significantly in their discrimination between items presented in a list and semantically related, non‐presented items, although the data were insensitive, suggesting the need for larger samples. Our findings help to refine theoretical accounts by challenging the notion that autism is caused by pervasively disordered prediction abilities. Further studies will be required to assess the relationship between predictive processing and context use in autism, and to establish the conditions under which predictive processing may be impaired. Autism Res 2018, 11: 509–518. © 2017 The Authors Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Lay SummaryIt has been suggested that autistic individuals have difficulties making predictions and perceiving the overall gist of things. Yet, here we found that autistic children made similar predictions about hidden objects as non‐autistic children. In a memory task, autistic children were slightly less confused about whether they had heard a word before, when words were closely related in meaning. We conclude that autistic children do not show difficulties with this type of prediction.

Exploring how material cues drive sensorimotor prediction across different levels of autistic-like traits

“…2b, c; Gordon et al 1991; Flanagan and Beltzner 2000). Although seemingly contradictive of various sensorimotor research (e.g., Mosconi et al 2013; Buckingham et al 2016), this corresponds with a meaningful body of clinical evidence which has shown broad prediction-dependent capabilities to be typical in autistic people (Mostofsky et al 2004; Gidley-Larson et al 2008; Ego et al 2016; Tewolde et al 2018). Findings also align with recent evidence that autistic and neurotypical individuals attend to similar information when presented with visual illusions (Chouinard et al 2018).…”

“…However, feedforward atypicalities have not been consistently detected in research (Palmer et al 2017; Tewolde et al 2018). For example, autistic children exhibit typical rates of motor adaptation in various tasks that require, and depend on, broad abilities to utilise ‘top–down’ internal models (Gidley-Larson et al 2008), while prediction-related atypicalities in perception (e.g., global processing; Brosnan et al 2004) do not inevitably transfer onto action or behavior (Palmer et al 2017).…”

Autistic Traits Differently Account for Context-Based Predictions of Physical and Social Events

“…Several studies have provided evidence of altered perception of the world in individuals with autism [56][57][58][59][60] and in typically-developing individuals with high autistic traits [61][62][63].…”

The world as we know it and the world as it is: Eye‐movement patterns reveal decreased use of prior knowledge in individuals with autism

“…On the other hand, several studies report intact use of priors by individuals with autism. For example, Brown et al [] and Barnes et al [] found no differences in implicit learning in tasks such as contextual cuing in participants with autism, Ego et al [] and Tewolde et al [] found intact motion prediction in autistic children. Croydon et al [] found typical “light‐from‐above” prior in children with autism.…”