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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Comparing Eye-tracking Data of Children with High-functioning ASD, Comorbid ADHD, and of a Control Watching Social Videos

Comparing Eye-tracking Data of Children with High-functioning ASD, Comorbid ADHD, and of a Control Watching Social Videos

Published on: December 7, 2018

Basic abnormalities in visual processing affect face processing at an early age in autism spectrum disorder.

Petra Hendrika Johanna Maria Vlamings¹, Lisa Marthe Jonkman, Emma van Daalen

¹Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands. Vlamings@psychology.unimaas.nl

Biological Psychiatry

|August 24, 2010

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show enhanced processing of detailed visual information (high spatial frequencies). This early visual processing abnormality in autism may impact the development of social skills.

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Published on: July 31, 2016

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Developmental Psychology
Ophthalmology

Background:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with visual processing differences, particularly in face recognition.
These differences are linked to atypical processing of spatial frequencies (SFs), affecting both global (low SF) and detailed (high SF) visual information.
Early development of face processing and its relation to SF processing in ASD remains under-investigated.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate visual processing of low spatial frequencies (LSF) and high spatial frequencies (HSF) in young children with ASD.
To explore the role of SF processing in the early development of face processing abilities in ASD.
To determine if observed SF processing abnormalities are specific to faces or a general visual processing trait.

Main Methods:

Compared 3- to 4-year-old children with ASD (n=22) to developmentally delayed children without ASD (n=17).
Measured visual evoked potentials (VEPs) in response to LSF and HSF gratings.
Assessed responses to facial expressions filtered for LSF and HSF content.

Main Results:

Children with ASD exhibited enhanced visual brain activity for HSF compared to LSF information, unlike controls.
Facial expression processing in ASD was predominantly driven by detailed (HSF) visual information.
These findings suggest a general visual SF processing abnormality in early ASD.

Conclusions:

Enhanced processing of detailed (HSF) visual information is an early characteristic of ASD, observed in both neutral and social stimuli.
This general visual SF processing abnormality in early ASD supports theories of affected subcortical pathways for face processing.
Atypical visual processing, particularly of SFs, may be a causative factor in the development of social deficits in ASD.