Do deficits in visual motion processing underlie social
difficulties in autism? Little is known about the perceptual
deficits associated with autism. This is surprising because the
accurate perception of socially relevant information is a
necessary first step in social behavior. People communicate vast
amounts of rich social information, such as emotion and
intention, through their actions. Given the importance of human
action perception to social behavior, vision researchers have
conducted numerous experiments to understand how the human
visual system normally analyzes the bodily movements or actions
of other people. This is done by simulating human movements
using multiple points of light across a computer screen. This
psychophysical measurement will be applied to individuals with
high functioning autism (HFA) to determine how, and how well,
adults with autism can differentiate patterns of individual
points of light that mimic human movement. Significance: This
proposal addresses the question of whether ind