Atypical Attentional Effort During Visual Search in Autistic Adults: Evidence From Task-Evoked Pupillary Responses / Zainab NAARAN in Autism Research, 19-9 (September 2026)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism Research > 19-9 (September 2026) . - p. e70332 Titre : Atypical Attentional Effort During Visual Search in Autistic Adults: Evidence From Task-Evoked Pupillary Responses Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Zainab NAARAN, Auteur ; Amit YASHAR, Auteur Article en page(s) : p. e70332 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : attention allocation  autism spectrum disorder  intertrial repetition effect  task-evoked pupillary response  visual search Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : ABSTRACT According to prevalent views, autistic individuals have a stronger tendency to allocate attention to details, as supported by reports of enhanced visual search performance. However, both the dynamics and the types of information involved in attentional guidance in autism are not fully understood. We addressed this issue by testing the influence of search history on visual search performance and pupil size in a long search display (Experiment 1) and on accuracy in a brief and masked?more attentionally demanding?search display (Experiment 2). Autistic (N?=?48) and non-autistic (N?=?45) participants searched for a color singleton target (all equiluminant colors) and responded by identifying its shape. In each trial, the target and distractor colors could be repeated, switched, or novel with respect to the previous trial. In Experiment 1, while overall reaction time was comparable across groups, the task-evoked pupillary responses (TEPRs) were smaller in the autistic group, indicating reduced attentional effort in autism. In Experiment 2, in a more attentionally demanding display, autistic individuals showed superior search accuracy. In both experiments, both groups showed a reliable effect of recent search history on performance, indicating that, similar to non-autistic individuals, autistic individuals rely on recent experience during attentional allocation. Alterations in attentional allocation and its interaction with recent experience in autism were reflected in pupil responses. These alterations may provide a sensitive marker of differences in the dynamics of attentional allocation in autism, which are reflected in behavioral measurements when display conditions are more attentionally demanding. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.70332 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=592 [article] Atypical Attentional Effort During Visual Search in Autistic Adults: Evidence From Task-Evoked Pupillary Responses [texte imprimé] / Zainab NAARAN, Auteur ; Amit YASHAR, Auteur . - p. e70332. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism Research > 19-9 (September 2026) . - p. e70332 Mots-clés : attention allocation  autism spectrum disorder  intertrial repetition effect  task-evoked pupillary response  visual search Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : ABSTRACT According to prevalent views, autistic individuals have a stronger tendency to allocate attention to details, as supported by reports of enhanced visual search performance. However, both the dynamics and the types of information involved in attentional guidance in autism are not fully understood. We addressed this issue by testing the influence of search history on visual search performance and pupil size in a long search display (Experiment 1) and on accuracy in a brief and masked?more attentionally demanding?search display (Experiment 2). Autistic (N?=?48) and non-autistic (N?=?45) participants searched for a color singleton target (all equiluminant colors) and responded by identifying its shape. In each trial, the target and distractor colors could be repeated, switched, or novel with respect to the previous trial. In Experiment 1, while overall reaction time was comparable across groups, the task-evoked pupillary responses (TEPRs) were smaller in the autistic group, indicating reduced attentional effort in autism. In Experiment 2, in a more attentionally demanding display, autistic individuals showed superior search accuracy. In both experiments, both groups showed a reliable effect of recent search history on performance, indicating that, similar to non-autistic individuals, autistic individuals rely on recent experience during attentional allocation. Alterations in attentional allocation and its interaction with recent experience in autism were reflected in pupil responses. These alterations may provide a sensitive marker of differences in the dynamics of attentional allocation in autism, which are reflected in behavioral measurements when display conditions are more attentionally demanding. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.70332 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=592

Suboptimal but intact integration of Bayesian components during perceptual decision-making in autism / Bat-Sheva HADAD ; Rachel N DENISON ; Amit YASHAR in Molecular Autism, 16 (2025)  

Public ISBD [article]  inMolecular Autism > 16 (2025) . - 2 Titre : Suboptimal but intact integration of Bayesian components during perceptual decision-making in autism Type de document : texte imprimé Auteurs : Bat-Sheva HADAD, Auteur ; Rachel N DENISON, Auteur ; Amit YASHAR, Auteur Article en page(s) : 2 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Humans  Bayes Theorem  Decision Making  Autistic Disorder/physiopathology/psychology  Male  Female  Adult  Young Adult  Perception  Adolescent  Autism spectrum disorder  Bayesian perception  Decision-making  Suboptimality  provided written informed consent and the two studies received ethical clearance  from the Institutional Review Board at the University of Haifa under the  reference number 046/20. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing  interests. Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: Alterations in sensory perception, a core phenotype of autism, are attributed to imbalanced integration of sensory information and prior knowledge during perceptual statistical (Bayesian) inference. This hypothesis has gained momentum in recent years, partly because it can be implemented both at the computational level, as in Bayesian perception, and at the level of canonical neural microcircuitry, as in predictive coding. However, empirical investigations have yielded conflicting results with evidence remaining limited. Critically, previous studies did not assess the independent contributions of priors and sensory uncertainty to the inference. METHOD: We addressed this gap by quantitatively assessing both the independent and interdependent contributions of priors and sensory uncertainty to perceptual decision-making in autistic and non-autistic individuals (N = 126) during an orientation categorization task. RESULTS: Contrary to common views, autistic individuals integrated the two Bayesian components into their decision behavior, and did so indistinguishably from non-autistic individuals. Both groups adjusted their decision criteria in a suboptimal manner. LIMITATIONS: This study focuses on explicit priors in a perceptual categorization task and high-functioning adults. Thus, although the findings provide strong evidence against a general and basic alteration in prior integration in autism, they cannot rule out more specific cases of reduced prior effect - such as due to implicit prior learning, particular level of decision making (e.g., social), and level of functioning of the autistic person. CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal intact inference for autistic individuals during perceptual decision-making, challenging the notion that Bayesian computations are fundamentally altered in autism. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-025-00639-3 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=555 [article] Suboptimal but intact integration of Bayesian components during perceptual decision-making in autism [texte imprimé] / Bat-Sheva HADAD, Auteur ; Rachel N DENISON, Auteur ; Amit YASHAR, Auteur . - 2. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Molecular Autism > 16 (2025) . - 2 Mots-clés : Humans  Bayes Theorem  Decision Making  Autistic Disorder/physiopathology/psychology  Male  Female  Adult  Young Adult  Perception  Adolescent  Autism spectrum disorder  Bayesian perception  Decision-making  Suboptimality  provided written informed consent and the two studies received ethical clearance  from the Institutional Review Board at the University of Haifa under the  reference number 046/20. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing  interests. Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: Alterations in sensory perception, a core phenotype of autism, are attributed to imbalanced integration of sensory information and prior knowledge during perceptual statistical (Bayesian) inference. This hypothesis has gained momentum in recent years, partly because it can be implemented both at the computational level, as in Bayesian perception, and at the level of canonical neural microcircuitry, as in predictive coding. However, empirical investigations have yielded conflicting results with evidence remaining limited. Critically, previous studies did not assess the independent contributions of priors and sensory uncertainty to the inference. METHOD: We addressed this gap by quantitatively assessing both the independent and interdependent contributions of priors and sensory uncertainty to perceptual decision-making in autistic and non-autistic individuals (N = 126) during an orientation categorization task. RESULTS: Contrary to common views, autistic individuals integrated the two Bayesian components into their decision behavior, and did so indistinguishably from non-autistic individuals. Both groups adjusted their decision criteria in a suboptimal manner. LIMITATIONS: This study focuses on explicit priors in a perceptual categorization task and high-functioning adults. Thus, although the findings provide strong evidence against a general and basic alteration in prior integration in autism, they cannot rule out more specific cases of reduced prior effect - such as due to implicit prior learning, particular level of decision making (e.g., social), and level of functioning of the autistic person. CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal intact inference for autistic individuals during perceptual decision-making, challenging the notion that Bayesian computations are fundamentally altered in autism. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-025-00639-3 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=555

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