Investigating visual-tactile interactions over time and space in adults with autism

It has been suggested that the sensory symptoms which affect many people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) may be related to alterations in multisensory processing. Typically, the likelihood of interactions between the senses increases when information is temporally and spatially coincident. We explored visual-tactile interactions in adults with ASC for the first time in two experiments using low-level stimuli. Both participants with ASC and matched neurotypical controls only produced crossmodal interactions to near simultaneous stimuli, suggesting that temporal modulation is unaffected in the adult population. We also provide preliminary evidence that visual-tactile interactions may occur over greater spatial distances in participants with ASC, which merits further exploration.