The perception of social and mechanical causality in young children with ASD

This study investigated perceptual causality in launch and reaction events in children with ASD (CA = 8.4, VMA = 5.1) and mental age matched controls with typical development and learning difficulties. This is of interest because difficulties with global processing in autism suggest that individuals with ASD may not ‘see’ causal Gestalts in general, and specific difficulties with reaction perception could be related to difficulties with TOM. Participants matched pictures depicting mechanical and psychological cause and non-causality to computer animated launch and reaction events and delayed control events. Children with ASD showed the typical response to reaction events, matching them with the picture for psychological cause, but they were impaired in launch perception compared to control participants. We discuss the possibility that event duration may be the critical difference between the causal events. The information allowing identification of a reaction is conveyed over a longer time frame (600 ms here) than in launching (21 ms here). This may allow for the deployment of global processes and/or attentional shifts in reaction, but not launch perception.