Abstract:

Orienting network is an important part of attention system and it includes two major tasks: visual orienting and visual search. For these two tasks, typically developed group shows similar neural mechanisms. However, from a perspective of attention to non-social information, different behavioral patterns were observed between visual orienting and visual search in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) group. Regarding visual orienting, the consensus is that ASD individuals are intact in attentional shift but have difficulty in attentional disengagement; however, this conclusion is still controversial. Regarding visual search, ASD individuals have superior search ability, but its time sequence and reasons deserves further exploration. Future studies should identify the hemispherical symmetry of ASD individuals in visual orienting task, the underlying mechanisms of visual search advantage, and the relationships between visual orienting and visual search in ASD populations.

Key words: autism, non-social information, visual orienting, visual search, neural mechanisms