The "Tetris effect": autistic and non-autistic people share an implicit drive for perceptual cohesion / Brónagh MCCOY ; Esther Wing-Chi YIP ; Carrie ALLISON ; Simon BARON-COHEN ; Rebecca P LAWSON in Molecular Autism, 16 (2025)  

Public ISBD [article]  inMolecular Autism > 16 (2025) . - 22 Titre : The "Tetris effect": autistic and non-autistic people share an implicit drive for perceptual cohesion Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Brónagh MCCOY, Auteur ; Esther Wing-Chi YIP, Auteur ; Carrie ALLISON, Auteur ; Simon BARON-COHEN, Auteur ; Rebecca P LAWSON, Auteur Article en page(s) : 22 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Humans  Autistic Disorder/psychology/physiopathology  Male  Female  Adult  Young Adult  Adolescent  Middle Aged  Attention  Autism  Neurodiversity  Open materials  Perceptual cohesion  Replication  Spatial cognition  Tetris  Visual perception  performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the  Psychology Research Ethics Committee at the University of Cambridge (PREC.  2019.098). Consent for publication: Not applicable. Availability of data and  materials: The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are  available in the OSF repository, https://osf.io/h9sjv/ . Plans to replicate Guan  and Firestone (2020) and investigate similar research questions in autistic and  non-autistic adults were pre-registered ( https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/2QVB5  ). Competing interests: One of the authors, SBC, was previously Editor-in-Chief  of Molecular Autism. All other authors declare that they have no competing  interests. Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: When working on jigsaw puzzles, we mentally "combine" two pieces to form a composite image even before physically fitting them together. This happens when the separate pieces could logically create a cohesive picture and not when they are mismatched or incoherent. The capacity of the brain to combine individual elements to form possible wholes serves as the basis of perceptual organisation. This drive for perceptual cohesion-the "Tetris effect"-can be seen in the famous game, where people automatically perceive logical combinations from separate pieces. However, it is unclear how this presents in populations known to have perceptual differences, such as autistic people. Theories on the inclination to process local over global details in autism and autistic strengths in pattern recognition lead to conflicting predictions regarding the drive for perceptual cohesion in autistic compared to non-autistic people. METHODS: In this large-scale (n = 470) pre-registered online behavioural study, we aimed to replicate previous research conducted on neurotypical participants and to extend this work to autistic participants. We used two tasks with Tetris-style stimuli to examine how autistic (n = 196) and non-autistic (n = 274) adults implicitly perceive possible wholes from individual parts. Data were analysed using logistic mixed-effects regression models and hierarchical Signal Detection Theory modelling. RESULTS: Overall, we replicated the results from the original study in finding participants are more likely to perceive parts as wholes when there is the potential to form a whole, compared to when there is not. However, we found no differences between autistic and non-autistic participants across both tasks. LIMITATIONS: Although power calculations were carried out to assess sample sizes needed to detect a group difference, given the small effect size (Cohen's d = 0.37) in the original study, it may be that any existing group differences are still undetectable with the current sample size. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the "Tetris effect" is ubiquitous and seen in both neurotypical and neurodiverse populations. Our findings challenge the deficit-focussed narrative often seen in the autism literature and highlight the similarities in task performance between autistic and non-autistic participants. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-025-00654-4 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=555 [article] The "Tetris effect": autistic and non-autistic people share an implicit drive for perceptual cohesion [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Brónagh MCCOY, Auteur ; Esther Wing-Chi YIP, Auteur ; Carrie ALLISON, Auteur ; Simon BARON-COHEN, Auteur ; Rebecca P LAWSON, Auteur . - 22. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Molecular Autism > 16 (2025) . - 22 Mots-clés : Humans  Autistic Disorder/psychology/physiopathology  Male  Female  Adult  Young Adult  Adolescent  Middle Aged  Attention  Autism  Neurodiversity  Open materials  Perceptual cohesion  Replication  Spatial cognition  Tetris  Visual perception  performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the  Psychology Research Ethics Committee at the University of Cambridge (PREC.  2019.098). Consent for publication: Not applicable. Availability of data and  materials: The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are  available in the OSF repository, https://osf.io/h9sjv/ . Plans to replicate Guan  and Firestone (2020) and investigate similar research questions in autistic and  non-autistic adults were pre-registered ( https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/2QVB5  ). Competing interests: One of the authors, SBC, was previously Editor-in-Chief  of Molecular Autism. All other authors declare that they have no competing  interests. Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: When working on jigsaw puzzles, we mentally "combine" two pieces to form a composite image even before physically fitting them together. This happens when the separate pieces could logically create a cohesive picture and not when they are mismatched or incoherent. The capacity of the brain to combine individual elements to form possible wholes serves as the basis of perceptual organisation. This drive for perceptual cohesion-the "Tetris effect"-can be seen in the famous game, where people automatically perceive logical combinations from separate pieces. However, it is unclear how this presents in populations known to have perceptual differences, such as autistic people. Theories on the inclination to process local over global details in autism and autistic strengths in pattern recognition lead to conflicting predictions regarding the drive for perceptual cohesion in autistic compared to non-autistic people. METHODS: In this large-scale (n = 470) pre-registered online behavioural study, we aimed to replicate previous research conducted on neurotypical participants and to extend this work to autistic participants. We used two tasks with Tetris-style stimuli to examine how autistic (n = 196) and non-autistic (n = 274) adults implicitly perceive possible wholes from individual parts. Data were analysed using logistic mixed-effects regression models and hierarchical Signal Detection Theory modelling. RESULTS: Overall, we replicated the results from the original study in finding participants are more likely to perceive parts as wholes when there is the potential to form a whole, compared to when there is not. However, we found no differences between autistic and non-autistic participants across both tasks. LIMITATIONS: Although power calculations were carried out to assess sample sizes needed to detect a group difference, given the small effect size (Cohen's d = 0.37) in the original study, it may be that any existing group differences are still undetectable with the current sample size. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the "Tetris effect" is ubiquitous and seen in both neurotypical and neurodiverse populations. Our findings challenge the deficit-focussed narrative often seen in the autism literature and highlight the similarities in task performance between autistic and non-autistic participants. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-025-00654-4 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=555

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