Brief Report: When Large Becomes Slow: Zooming-Out Visual Attention Is Associated to Orienting Deficits in Autism

Previous studies independently demonstrated impairments in rapid orienting/disengagement and zooming-out of spatial attention in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These attentional mechanisms, however, are not completely independent. Aiming at a more complete picture of spatial attention deficits in ASD, we examined the relationship between orienting and zooming in participants with ASD and typically developing peers. We modified a classical spatial cuing task, presenting two small or large cues in the two visual hemifields and subsequently cueing attention to one of them. Our results demonstrate a sluggish orienting mechanism in ASD only when a large attentional focus is deployed. Moreover, only the sluggish orienting mechanism in the large cues condition predicts the severity in the social-interaction symptomatology in individuals with ASD.