The light-from-above prior is intact in autistic children

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Abigail CroydonElizabeth Pellicano

Abstract

Sensory information is inherently ambiguous. The brain disambiguates this information by anticipating or predicting the sensory environment based on prior knowledge. Pellicano and Burr (2012) proposed that this process may be atypical in autism and that internal assumptions, or "priors," may be underweighted or less used than in typical individuals. A robust internal assumption used by adults is the "light-from-above" prior, a bias to interpret ambiguous shading patterns as if formed by a light source located above (and slightly to the left) of the scene. We investigated whether autistic children (n=18) use this prior to the same degree as typical children of similar age and intellectual ability (n=18). Children were asked to judge the shape (concave or convex) of a shaded hexagon stimulus presented in 24 rotations. We estimated the relation between the proportion of convex judgments and stimulus orientation for each child and calculated the light source location most consistent with those judgments. Children behaved similarly to adults in this task, preferring to assume that the light source was from above left, when other interpretations were compatible with the shading evidence. Autistic and typical children used prior assum...Continue Reading

Citations

Jan 16, 2019·Nature Neuroscience·Itay LiederMerav Ahissar
May 24, 2019·Autism Research : Official Journal of the International Society for Autism Research·Magdalena Król, Michał Król
May 3, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Jean-Paul NoelDora E Angelaki
Dec 8, 2020·Autism Research : Official Journal of the International Society for Autism Research·Laurie-Anne Sapey-TriompheJohan Wagemans
Feb 1, 2021·Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders·Sheila AchermannPär Nyström
Oct 2, 2020·Vision Research·Beverley Pickard-JonesAyelet Sapir
Apr 2, 2021·Neuropsychologia·Johanna J S FinnemannPaul C Fletcher
Apr 4, 2021·Autism Research : Official Journal of the International Society for Autism Research·Sander Van de CruysJohan Wagemans
Jun 5, 2021·Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders·Kaitlyn TurbettRomina Palermo
Oct 8, 2021·Molecular Autism·Laurie-Anne Sapey-TriompheJohan Wagemans

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