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Neurological disorders

Perception versus attention

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 4, page 432 (2003)Cite this article

As socially meaningful cues are physically complex, it has been hypothesized that subjects with autism might have difficulty encoding and representing sensory information. As reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, C̆eponienė and colleagues tested this hypothesis in high-functioning children with autism.

Event-related brain potentials were recorded during presentation of acoustically matched tones and vowels, to compare responses to non-speech and speech sounds, respectively. Presenting these acoustic stimuli as an 'oddball' sequence in which a 'deviant' sound was occasionally substituted for a 'standard' repetitive sound allowed the researchers to discriminate between sensory processing and involuntary attentional orienting.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. C̆eponienė, R. et al. Speech–sound-selective auditory impairment in children with autism: they can perceive but do not attend. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 100, 5567–5572 (2003)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Siegal, M. & Varley, R. Neural systems involved in 'theory of mind'. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 3, 463–471 (2002)

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Authors
  1. Suzanne Farley
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Farley, S. Perception versus attention. Nat Rev Neurosci 4, 432 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1152

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