Jocelyn Faubert

Motion Perception in Autism: A Complex Issue

We present the first assessment of motion sensitivity for persons with autism and normal intelligence using motion patterns that require neural processing mechanisms of varying complexity. Compared to matched controls, our results demonstrate that the motion sensitivity of observers with autism is similar to that of nonautistic observers for different types of first-order (luminance-defined) motion stimuli, but significantly decreased for the same types of second-order (texture-defined) stimuli. The latter class of motion stimuli has been demonstrated to require additional neural computation to be processed adequately. This finding may reflect less efficient integrative functioning of the neural mechanisms that mediate visuoperceptual processing in autism. The contribution of this finding with regards to abnormal perceptual integration in autism, its effect on cognitive operations, and possible behavioral implications are discussed.

Larger effect of aging on the perception of higher-order stimuli.

Widespread deficits are known to accompany normal aging. Contrast thresholds of older and younger observers were measured for static and drifting gratings defined by luminance (first-order) or by contrast (second-order), and for a temporally segmented second-order motion stimulus. Results showed that older individuals had a larger threshold elevation for the perception of second-order stimuli than for the perception of first-order stimuli. This suggests a dissociation between the mechanisms underlying the perception of first and second-order stimuli, and demonstrates that aging may affect the more numerous processing steps required for the analysis of higher level stimuli.

Modulation of Walking Speed by Changing Optic Flow in Persons with Stroke

The present study was undertaken to compare the modulation of walking speed in response to optic flow (OF) speed changes between persons with stroke and healthy controls. Twelve individuals with stroke and 12 healthy controls walked on a self-paced treadmill viewing a virtual corridor in a helmet-mounted display. In experiment 1, the speed of an expanding OF was varied sinusoidally at 0.017Hz, from 0 to 2 times the individuals comfortable walking speed. In experiment 2, individuals were instructed to walk through a virtual hallway of 10m at their comfortable pace (control trials). During the test trials that followed the control trials, expanding optic flows ranging from 0.25 to 1.75 of the initial comfortable speed were randomly presented. Subjects were instructed to walk the test trial distance within the same time as during the preceding control trial. Results from experiment 1 showed that gait speed was modulated out-of-phase with respect to OF speed in the healthy controls, but it varied from out-of-phase to in-phase patterns in the individuals with stroke. A negative linear relationship was observed between gait speed and OF speed in healthy and stroke individuals in experiment 2. These results indicate that individuals with stroke, although able to modulate the gait speed by changing the perception of movement through different OF speeds, present with altered modulation response patterns as compared to healthy subjects

Modulation of walking speed by changing optic flow in persons with stroke

BackgroundWalking speed, which is often reduced after stroke, can be influenced by the perception of optic flow (OF) speed. The present study aims to: 1) compare the modulation of walking speed in response to OF speed changes between persons with stroke and healthy controls and 2) investigate whether virtual environments (VE) manipulating OF speed can be used to promote volitional changes in walking speed post stroke.MethodsTwelve persons with stroke and 12 healthy individuals walked on a self-paced treadmill while viewing a virtual corridor in a helmet-mounted display. Two experiments were carried out on the same day. In experiment 1, the speed of an expanding OF was varied sinusoidally at 0.017 Hz (sine duration = 60 s), from 0 to 2 times the subjects comfortable walking speed, for a total duration of 5 minutes. In experiment 2, subjects were exposed to expanding OFs at discrete speeds that ranged from 0.25 to 2 times their comfortable speed. Each test trial was paired with a control trial performed at comfortable speed with matching OF. For each of the test trials, subjects were instructed to walk the distance within the same time as during the immediately preceding control trial. VEs were controlled by the CAREN-2 system (Motek). Instantaneous changes in gait speed (experiment 1) and the ratio of speed changes in the test trial over the control trial (experiment 2) were contrasted between the two groups of subjects.ResultsWhen OF speed was changing continuously (experiment 1), an out-of-phase modulation was observed in the gait speed of healthy subjects, such that slower OFs induced faster walking speeds, and vice versa. Persons with stroke displayed weaker (p < 0.05, T-test) correlation coefficients between gait speed and OF speed, due to less pronounced changes and an altered phasing of gait speed modulation. When OF speed was manipulated discretely (experiment 2), a negative linear relationship was generally observed between the test-control ratio of gait speed and OF speed in healthy and stroke individuals. The slope of this relationship was similar between the stroke and healthy groups (p > 0.05, T-test).ConclusionStroke affects the modulation of gait speed in response to changes in the perception of movement through different OF speeds. Nevertheless, the preservation of even a modest modulation enabled the persons with stroke to increase walking speed when presented with slower OFs. Manipulation of OF speed using virtual reality technology could be implemented in a gait rehabilitation intervention to promote faster walking speeds after stroke.

Recognition of Faces and Complex Objects in Younger and Older Adults

We examined whether (1) age-associated impairments in face recognition are specific to faces or also apply to within-category recognition of other objects and (2) age-related face recognition deficits are related to impairments in encoding second-order relations and holistic information. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found reliable age differences for recognition of faces, but not of objects. Moreover, older adults (OAs) and younger adults (YAs) displayed similar face inversion effects. In Experiment 3, unlike YAs, OA s did not show the expected decline in performance for recognition of composites (Young, Hellawell, & Hay, 1987). In Experiment 4, both OAs and YAs showed a whole/part advantage (Tanaka & Farah, 1993). Our results suggest that OAs have spared function for processing of secondorder relations and holistic information. Possible explanations for the finding that OAs have greater difficulty recognizing faces than recognizing other objects are proposed.

Configural face encoding and spatial frequency information.

Configural relations and a critical band of spatial frequencies (SFs) in the middle range are particularly important for face recognition. We report the results of four experiments in which the relationship between these two types of information was examined. In Experiments 1, 2A, and 2B, theface inversion effect (FIE) was used to probe configural face encoding. Recognition of upright and inverted faces and nonface objects was measured in four conditions: a no-filter condition and three SF conditions (low, medium, and high frequency). We found significant FIEs of comparable magnitudes for all frequency conditions. In Experiment 3, discrimination of faces on the basis of either configural or featural modifications was measured under the same four conditions. Although the ability to discriminate configural modifications was superior in the medium-frequency condition, so was the ability to discriminate featural modifications. We conclude that the band of SF that is critical for face recognition does not contribute preferentially to configural encoding.

Lateral glances toward moving stimuli among young children with autism: Early regulation of locally oriented perception?

Autistic adults display enhanced and locally oriented low-level perception of static visual information, but diminished perception of some types of movement. The identification of potential precursors, such as atypical perceptual processing, among very young children would be an initial step toward understanding the development of these phenomena. The purpose of this study was to provide an initial measure and interpretation of atypical visual exploratory behaviors toward inanimate objects (AVEBIOs) among young children with autism. A coding system for AVEBIOs was constructed from a corpus of 40 semistandardized assessments of autistic children. The most frequent atypical visual behavior among 15 children aged 33-73 months was lateral glance that was mostly oriented toward moving stimuli and was detected reliably by the experimenters (intraclass correlation > .90). This behavior was more common among autistic than typically developing children of similar verbal mental age and chronological age. As lateral vision is associated with the filtering of high spatial frequency (detail perception) information and the facilitation of high temporal frequencies (movement perception), its high prevalence among very young autistic children may reflect early attempts to regulate and/or optimize both excessive amounts of local information and diminished perception of movement. These findings are initial evidence for the need to consider the neural bases and development of atypical behaviors and their implications for intervention strategies.

Separate neural pathways for contour and biological-motion cues in motion-defined animal shapes

To determine whether contour and biological motion (BM) cues for motion-defined shapes are subserved by two separate mechanisms, we used PET to measure regional cerebral blood flow in nine human subjects. Subjects were scanned in the following four conditions: (1) contour-defined animals with natural movements (running), (2) motion-defined animals in which the contours were removed and dots were placed on the limbs and moving parts (BM; running); (3) drifting static animal shapes (contours); and (4) drifting dots. The results demonstrate that the perception of BM involves the superior frontal gyrus, the precuneus, the fusiform, the lingual and the medial temporal gyri, the inferior parietal lobe, the hippocampal and parahippocampal areas, and the cerebellum. In addition, the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala were significantly activated. The perception of contour-defined shapes produced significant elevation of rCBF in some areas similar to the BM condition, namely the fusiform, medial occipital, medial temporal, and lingual gyri. Only the occipital pole and the inferior temporal cortex were specifically activated by contour-defined shapes. These results are congruent with previous findings that the dorsal visual pathway is important for the perception of BM. They further support psychophysical results showing that contour and BM cues for motion-defined animal shapes are processed by independent channels.

Isoluminance and chromatic motion perception throughout the visual field

Isoluminance and chromatic motion perception for red/green gratings were measured throughout an 80 deg visual field. Generally, the red/green isoluminance values changed with increasing eccentricity, i.e., observers increased the red luminance contrast for a fixed green luminance contrast. Enlarging the target size (to compensate for the cone density changes with eccentricity) and decreasing the spatial frequency (to compensate for receptive field property changes with eccentricity) did not change the isoluminance values within the central 20 deg, but the isoluminance ratios decreased beyond 20 deg. Our manipulations did not entirely compensate for a given eccentricity, which implies the need for a post-receptoral scaling function for the perception of drifting chromatic stimuli. Further, the results for isoluminance show heterogeneity between the visual field meridians where the red to green luminance ratio tends to be greater in the superior visual field. In our present conditions, chromatic motion was always perceived (up to 40 deg of eccentricity), but sensitivity generally decreased with increasing eccentricity. The inferior visual field was found to be the most sensitive to chromatic motion. We propose that the lower visual field and not the superior visual field is specialized for colour motion information.

Intraattribute and Interattribute Motion Induction

The phenomenon of motion induction occurs, for example, when a bar that is presented next to a spot, which itself was presented slightly earlier, is not correctly perceived to appear everywhere simultaneously, but seems to grow out of the spot. The spot is said to prime one end of the bar. Experiments have been designed to throw more light on the local and global aspects of this phenomenon, in particular to establish whether this illusory motion percept can be observed when the spot and the bar stimuli are defined with respect to the background by one of a variety of attributes, such as luminance, color, stereodepth (crossed and uncrossed), texture, and motion (start and stop). It was found that all attribute combinations supported motion induction readily, but that the strength of the perceived motion (as measured by magnitude estimation) varied and depended more on the attribute defining the bar than on the attribute of the spot. Luminance and color gave the most vivid effects, whereas motion and depth showed the least vivid effects. The influence of the amount of luminance and color contrast on the strength of the effect was also determined and it was found that these variables affected motion induction most at very low contrast levels close to detection threshold. It is concluded that the illusory motion in this effect depends only slightly on the particular visual attribute channel that carries the stimulus information. This is consistent with the contention that it is a high-level, attention-related effect, phenomenologically similar to polarized gamma movement.