Elevated Thresholds for Light Touch in Children With Autism Reflect More Conservative Perceptual Decision-Making Rather Than a Sensory Deficit.

ABSTRACT: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often behaviorally hyper-reactive to light touch, but it is unclear to what degree this arises from a fundamental sensory difference vs. higher order systems for attention or emotion processing. Thus far, experimental findings for light touch detection are mixed, and few previous studies have independently considered sensitivity (the ability to discriminate signal from noise) and decision criterion (the overall response bias or tendency to answer "yes" or "no" in a detection task). We tested a large sample of children, adolescents, and adults with ASD (n = 88) and with neurotypical (NT) development (n = 59) using von Frey filaments to derive light touch thresholds at the palm. We calculated signal detection metrics for sensi

SUBMITTER: Quinde-Zlibut JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7154145 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature