Are individuals with autism and Asperger's syndrome susceptible to visual illusions?

J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1999 Nov;40(8):1283-93.

Abstract

A recent finding that individuals with autism are not susceptible to illusions has been explained by Happé (1996) as a sign of "weak central coherence" at lower levels of processing. We investigated the phenomenon with a more sophisticated measure. In Experiment 1, individuals with autism, Asperger's syndrome, moderate learning difficulties, and typical development adjusted certain comparison lines and circles to make them appear to be the same size in four visual illusions. With a minor exception, the participants with autism and Asperger's syndrome evinced a systematic bias in their judgements in the illusion condition. The extent of this was no different from control participants. In a second experiment, a similar finding was obtained in a task where participants made verbal judgements about the stimuli. The results suggest that lower-level coherence in visual processing in autism is intact.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Asperger Syndrome / diagnosis
  • Asperger Syndrome / psychology*
  • Autistic Disorder / diagnosis
  • Autistic Disorder / psychology*
  • Child
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Learning Disabilities / diagnosis
  • Learning Disabilities / psychology
  • Male
  • Neuropsychological Tests
  • Optical Illusions*
  • Reference Values
  • Size Perception