Dataset Information

Greater magnocellular saccadic suppression in high versus low autistic tendency suggests a causal path to local perceptual style.

ABSTRACT: Saccadic suppression-the reduction of visual sensitivity during rapid eye movements-has previously been proposed to reflect a specific suppression of the magnocellular visual system, with the initial neural site of that suppression at or prior to afferent visual information reaching striate cortex. Dysfunction in the magnocellular visual pathway has also been associated with perceptual and physiological anomalies in individuals with autism spectrum disorder or high autistic tendency, leading us to question whether saccadic suppression is altered in the broader autism phenotype. Here we show that individuals with high autistic tendency show greater saccadic suppression of low versus high spatial frequency gratings while those with low autistic tendency do not. In addition, those with high but not low autism spectrum quotient (AQ) demonstrated pre-cortical (35-45?ms) evoked potential differences (saccade versus fixation) to a large, low contrast, pseudo-randomly flashing bar. Both AQ groups showed similar differential visual evoked potential effects in later epochs (80-160?ms) at high contrast. Thus, the magnocellular theory of saccadic suppression appears untenable as a general description for the typically developing population. Our results also suggest that the bias towards local perceptual style reported in autism may be due to selective suppression of low spatial frequency information accompanying every saccadic eye movement.

SUBMITTER: Crewther DP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4807440 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Greater magnocellular saccadic suppression in high versus low autistic tendency suggests a causal path to local perceptual style.

Crewther David P DP Crewther Daniel D Bevan Stephanie S Goodale Melvyn A MA Crewther Sheila G SG

Royal Society open science 20151216 12

Saccadic suppression-the reduction of visual sensitivity during rapid eye movements-has previously been proposed to reflect a specific suppression of the magnocellular visual system, with the initial neural site of that suppression at or prior to afferent visual information reaching striate cortex. Dysfunction in the magnocellular visual pathway has also been associated with perceptual and physiological anomalies in individuals with autism spectrum disorder or high autistic tendency, leading us ...[more]

PMID: 27019719

Similar Datasets

Project description:Adaptation of saccades can be induced by different error signals, such as retinal position errors, prediction errors, or reinforcement learning. Recently, we showed that a shift in the spatial goal of a perceptual task can induce saccadic adaptation, in the absence of a bottom-up position error. Here, we investigated whether this top-down effect is mediated by the visibility of the task-relevant object, by reinforcement due to the feedback about the perceptual judgment or by a target selection mechanism. Participants were asked to discriminate visual stimuli arranged in a vertical compound. To induce adaptation, the discrimination target was presented at eccentric locations in the compound. In the first experiment, we compared adaptation with an easy and difficult discrimination. In the second experiment, we compared adaptation when feedback about the perceptual task was valid and when feedback was provided but was unrelated to performance. In the third experiment, we compared adaptation with instructions to fixate one of the elements in the compound-target selection-to the perceptual task condition-target selection and discrimination. To control for a bottom-up stimulus effect, we ran a fourth experiment in which the only instruction was to look at the compound. The saccade amplitude data were fitted by a two-state model distinguishing between an immediate and a gradual error correction process. We replicated our finding that a perceptual task can drive adaptation of saccades. Adaptation showed no effect of feedback reliability, nor an effect of the perceptual task beyond target selection. Adaptation was induced by a top-down signal since it was absent when there was no target selection instruction and no perceptual task. The immediate error correction was larger for the difficult than for the easy condition, suggesting that task difficulty affects mainly voluntary saccade targeting. In addition, the repetition of experiments one week later increased the magnitude of the gradual error correction. The results dissociate two distinct components of adaptation: an immediate and a gradual error correction. We conclude that perceptual-task induced adaptation is most likely due to top-down target selection within a larger object.

Dataset Information

Greater magnocellular saccadic suppression in high versus low autistic tendency suggests a causal path to local perceptual style.

Publications

Greater magnocellular saccadic suppression in high versus low autistic tendency suggests a causal path to local perceptual style.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets