Periodic Reporting for period 1 - APPROVE (Autistic Perception and the Predictive Role of Visual Experience)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-10-01 bis 2023-09-30
How we make sense of the huge number of things we see around us? We move our eyes at least 3 times per second and the brain is constantly bombarded with very different information. How do we combine this information to get a stable and reliable representation of the visual world we are experiencing? “The autistic world” can be quite different from ours, and right now little is known on how socio-communicative difficulties and behavioral stereotypes in adulthood arise from childhood. One of the main challenges of the brain is to distinguish between external movements and movements that come from our own eye-movements. How to achieve a stable representation of the world despite the high-speed motion on the retina due to own eye movements? The sensorimotor system must act against this self-produced stimulus to prevent the perception of disturbing motion for every eye-movement. That means that the brain must have a precise idea of where the eyes are before and after an eye movement. An efference copy is a copy of the motor command that is sent to the sensory areas which makes a prediction about on where the eye will be after an eye movement, for example a saccade. This signal is then confronted to the actual feedback provided from the motor areas. If the predicted signal and the actual signal never match, perception should encounter problems in maintain stability. A constant lack of match between prediction and sensory feedback we hypothesized could lead over time to the build time of weaker prior experiences. Within this framework, recent theories propose that individuals with ASD may demonstrate a reduced reliance on prior information when making perceptual judgments. The Bayesian perspective suggests that the predictive system deficits in autism stem from a diminished Bayesian prior. From this perspective, the brain unconsciously infers information about the world by applying Bayes rule: it assesses the probability of a prediction given sensory data, considering the likelihood of sensory data given that prediction and the Bayesian prior. The Bayesian prior is essentially a probabilistic distribution representing the expectation of the environment being in a particular state before any observations are made. Formal objectives of this Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) have been to (a) to test the hypothesis that efference copy processing is weakened in ASD; (b) to test the idea that weak efference copy processing explains the inability to integrate contextual information in ASD; and (c) to test the efference copy hypothesis in a realistic environment.
Work was conducted via 6 work packages (WPs). WP1 the enroll and neuropsychologically test the patients and the control groups, in collaboration with the medical department at the host institution. Unfortunately, the enrolment of patients did not go as expected and the medical department didn’t deliver any patients. However, the enrollment and the psychological testing of the control groups (scored for autistic traits) was successful and led to a substantial number of participants. Moreover, in collaboration with the Edge Hill University, the Fellow was able to recruit and test autistic patients, spanning from children (6-10), adolescents (11-18), young adults and adults (>30). WP2 sought to test the ability in localizing stimuli during an eye movement. The ability to localize accurately and precisely, requires a system able to detect an error in judgment and adjust for this error accordingly. When this ability is missing, problems in motor components, such as repetitive or stereotyped behaviors, can occur. In it, the Fellow delivered 4 conference presentations and 4 conference publications, 2 published journal articles and additional 2 journal manuscripts underway.
WP3 involved exploring how individual with autistic traits make use of the context around them. The Fellow exceeded goals by delivering 3 conference presentations and 1 paper publication. In addition, the Fellow has 2 manuscripts underway.
The first major project under WP3 had two focus points: (1) understanding how we make use of the motion information during an eye movement and to (2) study how individuals with autism predict and adapt their behavior based on changes in the context. The project was split in two. The first part of the project is currently under review on a major impact factor journal, while the second already received an award during the European Conference of Visual Perception 2023 in Phaphos, Cyprus. In WP4 the developed mastery of another methodology: virtual reality. Under this package the Fellow programmed a virtual reality environment to study visuomotor recalibration failures in autism in a more ecological environment. Deliverables included presentation at a conference and paper publication. The abstract of the study conducted will be soon submitted at the conference of Visual Perception (VSS, Visual Science Society) for consideration. The paper of the study is now in preparation.
In WP5 and 6, for researcher training and transfer-of-knowledge and outreach activities, the Fellow attended multi-day conferences and trainings. She provided leadership in publishing and research at university, national, and international levels. To transfer of knowledge, she conducted workshops for researchers on how to write a successful Marie Curie proposal; she provided supervision and mentoring for early career researchers. She was appointed Review Editor in Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (Autism and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders) and in Frontiers in Psychology.
Results of this MSCA are reported in: (1) forthcoming papers on motion perception and object localization during saccade in autism disorders; (2) forthcoming papers using a newly acquired methodology (virtual reality); (3) papers about motor failures in autistic symptomatology; (4) but also papers on healthy adults that helped shed light on sensorimotor mechanisms in the typical population. data sets collected during this MSCA will inform and enhance dozens of publications in the coming years, in addition to the ones produced and published during the fellowship itself.
WP3 involved exploring how individual with autistic traits make use of the context around them. The Fellow exceeded goals by delivering 3 conference presentations and 1 paper publication. In addition, the Fellow has 2 manuscripts underway.
The first major project under WP3 had two focus points: (1) understanding how we make use of the motion information during an eye movement and to (2) study how individuals with autism predict and adapt their behavior based on changes in the context. The project was split in two. The first part of the project is currently under review on a major impact factor journal, while the second already received an award during the European Conference of Visual Perception 2023 in Phaphos, Cyprus. In WP4 the developed mastery of another methodology: virtual reality. Under this package the Fellow programmed a virtual reality environment to study visuomotor recalibration failures in autism in a more ecological environment. Deliverables included presentation at a conference and paper publication. The abstract of the study conducted will be soon submitted at the conference of Visual Perception (VSS, Visual Science Society) for consideration. The paper of the study is now in preparation.
In WP5 and 6, for researcher training and transfer-of-knowledge and outreach activities, the Fellow attended multi-day conferences and trainings. She provided leadership in publishing and research at university, national, and international levels. To transfer of knowledge, she conducted workshops for researchers on how to write a successful Marie Curie proposal; she provided supervision and mentoring for early career researchers. She was appointed Review Editor in Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (Autism and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders) and in Frontiers in Psychology.
Results of this MSCA are reported in: (1) forthcoming papers on motion perception and object localization during saccade in autism disorders; (2) forthcoming papers using a newly acquired methodology (virtual reality); (3) papers about motor failures in autistic symptomatology; (4) but also papers on healthy adults that helped shed light on sensorimotor mechanisms in the typical population. data sets collected during this MSCA will inform and enhance dozens of publications in the coming years, in addition to the ones produced and published during the fellowship itself.
This MSCA has pushed the frontiers of visuo-motor behaviors in autism spectrum disorders in a numerous way. The project helped providing a new theoretical framework within which to conceptualize the role of priors and predictions in visual behavior in normal and pathological eye-movement development that will set the basis for new insights into the link between potential early visual behavior vulnerability and the subsequent onset of socio-communicative difficulties and behavioral stereotypes. Impacts anticipated from the MSCA are increased and improved: student mentoring has led to mater students applying for PhD, and PhD mentoring has led to high impact factor publications; through social media, a large and variegate group of people has been reached, which has led to interesting chats with persons not in the field by interested in the topic; more publications than expected have been produced, and together with that many conferences have been attended by the Fellow which led to exchange of ideas, many published interview and one award.