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Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity

Perceptual anomalies in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been attributed to an imbalance in weighting incoming sensory evidence with prior knowledge when interpreting sensory information. Here, we show that sensory encoding and how it adapts to changing stimulus statistics during...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Noel, Jean-Paul, Zhang, Ling-Qi, Stocker, Alan A., Angelaki, Dora E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8143398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33979326
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001215
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author Noel, Jean-Paul
Zhang, Ling-Qi
Stocker, Alan A.
Angelaki, Dora E.
author_facet Noel, Jean-Paul
Zhang, Ling-Qi
Stocker, Alan A.
Angelaki, Dora E.
author_sort Noel, Jean-Paul
collection PubMed
description Perceptual anomalies in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been attributed to an imbalance in weighting incoming sensory evidence with prior knowledge when interpreting sensory information. Here, we show that sensory encoding and how it adapts to changing stimulus statistics during feedback also characteristically differs between neurotypical and ASD groups. In a visual orientation estimation task, we extracted the accuracy of sensory encoding from psychophysical data by using an information theoretic measure. Initially, sensory representations in both groups reflected the statistics of visual orientations in natural scenes, but encoding capacity was overall lower in the ASD group. Exposure to an artificial (i.e., uniform) distribution of visual orientations coupled with performance feedback altered the sensory representations of the neurotypical group toward the novel experimental statistics, while also increasing their total encoding capacity. In contrast, neither total encoding capacity nor its allocation significantly changed in the ASD group. Across both groups, the degree of adaptation was correlated with participants’ initial encoding capacity. These findings highlight substantial deficits in sensory encoding—independent from and potentially in addition to deficits in decoding—in individuals with ASD.
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spelling pubmed-81433982021-06-07 Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity Noel, Jean-Paul Zhang, Ling-Qi Stocker, Alan A. Angelaki, Dora E. PLoS Biol Research Article Perceptual anomalies in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been attributed to an imbalance in weighting incoming sensory evidence with prior knowledge when interpreting sensory information. Here, we show that sensory encoding and how it adapts to changing stimulus statistics during feedback also characteristically differs between neurotypical and ASD groups. In a visual orientation estimation task, we extracted the accuracy of sensory encoding from psychophysical data by using an information theoretic measure. Initially, sensory representations in both groups reflected the statistics of visual orientations in natural scenes, but encoding capacity was overall lower in the ASD group. Exposure to an artificial (i.e., uniform) distribution of visual orientations coupled with performance feedback altered the sensory representations of the neurotypical group toward the novel experimental statistics, while also increasing their total encoding capacity. In contrast, neither total encoding capacity nor its allocation significantly changed in the ASD group. Across both groups, the degree of adaptation was correlated with participants’ initial encoding capacity. These findings highlight substantial deficits in sensory encoding—independent from and potentially in addition to deficits in decoding—in individuals with ASD. Public Library of Science 2021-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8143398/ /pubmed/33979326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001215 Text en © 2021 Noel et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Noel, Jean-Paul
Zhang, Ling-Qi
Stocker, Alan A.
Angelaki, Dora E.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity
title Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity
title_full Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity
title_fullStr Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity
title_full_unstemmed Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity
title_short Individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity
title_sort individuals with autism spectrum disorder have altered visual encoding capacity
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8143398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33979326
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001215
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