Both high and low spatial frequencies are critical for visual consciousness in autism: Evidence of an emotional attentional blink paradigm.
Lacroix, A., Gomot, M., Fombonne, M., Perrier, M. J. R., Peyrin, C., Vermeulen, N., Park, G., Dutheil, F., & Mermillod, M. (2021). Both high and low spatial frequencies are critical for visual consciousness in autism: Evidence of an emotional attentional blink paradigm [Preprint]. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-16508/v2
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Abstract
Abstract High Spatial Frequencies (HSF - conveying local information) may serve a critical role in visual consciousness. Despite an HSF bias during visual perception in autism, autistic individuals demonstrate impairments in face processing. Our aim was to investigate the respective role of HSF and Low Spatial Frequencies (LSF - conveying coarse information) on visual consciousness in autism. Thirty-two autistic adults and 35 typically developing (TD) controls performed an emotional attentional blink paradigm with spatially filtered distractors. TD participants showed reduced T2 accuracy (i.e., accuracy for the second target given the correct report of the first target T1) after unfiltered and HSF distractors compared to LSF distractors. In the autistic group, we observed lower T2 accuracy than controls after HSF and LSF distractors but not after unfiltered distractors. Results suggest the importance of HSF for visual consciousness in TD participants whereas, both LSF and HSF seem important in autism.
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