The Development of Perceptual Expertise for Faces and Objects in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Previous research indicates that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) lack face expertise. Yet, it remains unclear whether this deficit is specific to faces or attributable to more pervasive perceptual or cognitive atypicalities. To address this issue, we examined the extent to which individuals with ASD developed expertise with unfamiliar, non-face objects. To become experts, all participants completed a two-week training program with novel objects. Level of expertise was assessed throughout training and strategies associated with expertise were indexed by performance on an inversion effect task completed before and after training. It was found that, although individuals with ASD successfully completed the expertise training, they tended to employ different strategies than the control group as experts. Specifically, the pattern of results indicated that individuals with ASD approach objects of expertise with a different set of perceptual biases. These findings have important implications for the development of face processing interventions for individuals with ASD.