Do people with autism spectrum disorders show normal selection for attention? Evidence from change blindness.

  1. Lookup NU author(s)
  2. Dr Sue Fletcher-Watson
  3. Dr Susan Leekham
Author(s)Fletcher-Watson S, Leekam SR, Turner MA, Moxon L
Publication type Article
JournalBritish Journal of Psychology
Year2006
Volume97
Issue4
Pages537-554
ISSN (print)0007-1269
Full text is available for this publication:
People in the general population are typically very poor at detecting changes in pictures of complex scenes. The degree of this `change blindness', however, varies with the content of the scene: when an object is semantically important or contextually inappropriate, people may be more effective at detecting changes. Two experiments investigated change blindness in people with autism, who are known from previous research to be efficient in detecting features yet poor at processing stimuli for meaning and context. The first experiment measured the effect of semantic information while the second investigated the role of context in directing attention. In each task, participants detected the dissimilarity between pairs of images. Both groups showed a main effect of image type in both experimental tasks, showing that their attention was directed to semantically meaningful and contextually inappropriate items. However, the autistic group also showed a greater difficulty detecting changes to semantically marginal items in the first experiment. Conclusions point to a normal selection of items for attention in people with autism spectrum disorders, although this may be combined with difficulty switching or disengaging attention.
PublisherThe British Psychological Society
URLhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712606X114057
DOI10.1348/000712606X114057
Actions    Link to this publication