Fast updating of stimulus history reveals weak internal representations of faces in autism

Marissa Hartston, Tal Lulav-Bash, Yael Goldstein-Marcusohn, Galia Avidan, Bat Sheva Hadad

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Atypical perception has been widely reported in autism spectrum disorders, and deficits in face recognition, specifically, are argued to be closely associated with social impairment experienced by these individuals. However, it is still debated (a) whether deficits are perceptually based, and (b) what the role is of experience-based refinements of perceptual face representations in autism. We investigated the effect of short- and long-term experienced stimulus history on face processing. Autistic and non-autistic individuals performed same-different judgments in a serial discrimination task where two consecutive faces were drawn from a distribution of morphed faces. Use of stimulus statistics was measured by testing the gravitation of face representations towards, the mean of a range of morphed faces around which they were sampled (regression-to-the-mean). The results show that unlike non-autistic individuals, representations of own- and other-race faces were equally biased by stimulus statistics in autistic individuals. Moreover, autistic individuals used the most recently exposed faces without forming a strong internal representation based on the overall experienced faces, indicating a weaker internal model of the “typical” averaged face. This accumulated history of faces may underlie typical face specialization, and thus may account for the reduced specialization for own-race faces shown in autism. The results shed light on the way autistic people process and recognize faces, and on the basic mechanisms underlying atypical face perception.

Original languageEnglish
JournalAutism Research
Early online date30 Sep 2024
DOIs
StateE-pub ahead of print - 30 Sep 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Keywords

  • Autism Spectrum Disorder
  • Bayesian perception
  • contextual effects
  • face processing
  • other-race effects
  • regression to the mean
  • serial dependance

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience
  • Clinical Neurology
  • Genetics(clinical)

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