Some theories have proposed that autistic individuals have difficulty learning predictive relationships. We tested this hypothesis using a serial reaction time task in which participants learned to predict the locations of a repeating sequence of target locations. We conducted a large-sample online study with 61 autistic and 71 neurotypical…

Previous research into autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has shown people with autism to be impaired at visual perspective taking. However it is still unclear to what extent the spatial mechanisms underlying this ability contribute to these difficulties. In the current experiment we examine spatial transformations in adults with ASD and typical…

Two experiments investigated how persons with and without autism plan manual aiming movements when advance information is direct and when strategic planning is required. In Experiment 1, advance information about hand, direction, and/or movement amplitude was manipulated. Reaction times suggested both groups adopted a hierarchical pattern of…

Mentalizing refers to making inferences about other people's mental states, whereas visuospatial perspective taking refers to inferring other people's viewpoints. Both abilities seem vital for social functioning; yet, their exact relationship is unclear. We directly compared mentalizing and visuospatial perspective taking in nineteen adults with…

We investigated linguistic and visuospatial processing during pictorial reasoning in high-functioning autism (HFA), Asperger's syndrome (ASP), and age and IQ-matched typically developing participants (CTRL), using three conditions designed to differentially engage linguistic mediation or visuospatial processing (visuospatial, V; semantic, S;…

We examined the ability to use static line drawings of eye gaze cues to orient visual-spatial attention in children with high functioning autism (HFA) compared to typically developing children (TD). The task was organized such that on "valid trials," gaze cues were directed toward the same spatial location as the appearance of an upcoming target,…

The profile of spatial ability is of interest across autism spectrum disorders (ASD) because of reported spatial strengths in ASD and due to the recent association of Asperger's syndrome with Nonverbal Learning Disability. Spatial functions were examined in relation to two cognitive theories in autism: the central coherence and executive function…