Atypical Effects of Visual Interference on Tactile Temporal Order Judgment in Individuals With Autism Spectrum...

Visual distractors interfere with tactile temporal order judgment (TOJ) at moderately short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) in typically developing participants. Presentation of a rubber hand in a forward direction to the participant's hand enhances this effect, while that in an inverted direction weakens the effect. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have atypical multisensory processing; however, effects of interferences on atypical multisensory processing in ASD remain unclear. In this study, we examined the effects of visual interference on tactile TOJ in individuals with ASD. Two successive tactile stimuli were delivered to the index and ring fingers of a participant's right hand in an opaque box. A rubber hand was placed on the box in a forward or inverted direction. Concurrently, visual stimuli provided by light-emitting diodes on the fingers of the rubber hand were delivered in a congruent or incongruent order. Participants were required to judge the temporal order of the tactile stimuli regardless of visual distractors. In the absence of a visual stimulus, participants with ASD tended to judge the simultaneous stimuli as the ring finger being stimulated first during tactile TOJ compared with typically developing (TD) controls, and congruent visual stimuli eliminated the bias. When incongruent visual stimuli were delivered, judgment was notably reversed in participants with ASD, regardless of the direction of the rubber hand. The findings demonstrate that there are considerable effects of visual interferences on tactile TOJ in individuals with ASD.