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Shifting attention between modalities: revisiting the modality-shift effect in autism

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posted on 2023-06-10, 01:08 authored by Daniel Poole, Eleanor MilesEleanor Miles, Emma Gowen, Ellen Poliakoff
Selective attention to a sensory modality has been observed experimentally in studies of the modality-shift effect – a relative performance benefit for targets preceded by a target in the same modality, compared to a different modality. Differences in selective attention are commonly observed in autism and we investigated whether exogenous (automatic) shift costs between modalities are increased. Autistic adults and neurotypical controls made speeded discrimination responses to simple visual, tactile and auditory targets. Shift costs were observed for each target modality in participant response times and were largest for auditory targets, reflective of fast responses on auditory repeat trials. Critically, shift costs were similar between the groups. However, integrating speed and accuracy data using drift-diffusion modelling revealed that shift costs in drift rates (reflecting the quality of information extracted from the stimulus) were reduced for autistic participants compared with neurotypicals. It may be that, unlike neurotypicals, there is little difference between attention within and between sensory modalities for autistic people. This finding also highlights the benefit of combining reaction time and accuracy data using decision models to better characterise selective attention in autism.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics

ISSN

1943-3921

Publisher

Springer

Issue

6

Volume

83

Page range

2498-2509

Event location

United States

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2021-09-24

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2021-09-24

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2021-09-24

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