[Koglist] Visual processing in autism / Johan Wagemans

14:00 h, May 18, 2016 Room 203, Mikszáth Kálmán Square 1, Budapest, 1088 Institute of Psychology Pázmány Peter Catholic University *Professor **Johan* *Wagemans* Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, KU Leuven (University of Leuven) *Enhanced local and reduced global visual processing in autism spectrum disorders? Not a simple story*. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) constitute a group of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by the co-occurrence of social and communicative impairments on the one hand and stereotyped, restricted behavior patterns and interests on the other hand. In addition, individuals with ASD are often argued to have a somewhat atypical perceptual processing style and visual abilities, characterized as reduced global processing (also called “weak central coherence”) and/or enhanced local processing (also called “enhanced perceptual functioning”). The scientific literature about this is rather confusing, with a mixture of theoretical concepts, operationalization in experimental tasks and stimuli, and – above all – empirical findings. In this talk the speaker will briefly review the main ideas and insights from this literature, and will add some new results from his lab. He will conclude with an analysis of the challenges for future research.