Altered Allocation of Vertical Attention in Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Developmental Disorders

Background:

• Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often focus on mouths instead of eyes.
• This difference in face viewing may link to broader attentional biases in ASD.
• Typical adults show visuospatial biases, like in line bisection tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate vertical attentional biases in individuals with ASD.
• To determine if ASD is associated with a downward vertical attentional bias using line bisection and quadrisection tasks.

Main Methods:

• 20 individuals with ASD and 20 controls (ages 6-23) participated.
• Participants performed vertical line bisection and quadrisection tasks.
• Performance was analyzed by comparing deviations from true midpoints and quadripoints.

Main Results:

• No significant differences were found for vertical line bisection or lower line quadrisection.
• The ASD group showed a significantly greater upward deviation in higher line quadrisection tasks.

Conclusions:

• Findings do not support a downward vertical attentional bias in ASD.
• An atypical upward vertical attentional bias in ASD warrants further investigation.
• This upward bias may potentially relate to ASD symptoms.