Summary: Children on the autism spectrum may process other people’s movements differently, especially when their attention is directed elsewhere.
Source: Rochester University
Recognizing small body-language cues—like someone leaning in, stepping back, or crossing their arms—is central to everyday social interaction.
A team at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, University of Rochester, reports that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may not reliably process biological motion—the visible movement patterns of other people—when their attention is occupied by something else.
“Reading and responding to body language matters in our daily social exchanges,” said Emily Knight, M.D., Ph.D., a clinical and postdoctoral fellow in Pediatrics and Neuroscience and the study’s first author, in the paper published in Molecular Autism.
“Our results indicate that when children with autism are distracted, their brains respond differently to another person’s movements than the brains of typically developing children.”
Important differences in how the brain responds
To investigate, researchers used high-density electroencephalography (EEG) to record brain activity while children viewed point-light displays—simple arrangements of moving dots that, together, form the impression of a person in motion. The displays showed actions such as running, kicking, and jumping; on some trials the dot patterns were inverted or scrambled so they no longer resembled coherent human movement.
Participants, aged six to 16, completed two tasks: one that required them to attend to the color of the dots, and another that asked them to judge whether the dots moved like a person. The comparison allowed researchers to separate automatic, unintentional processing of biological motion from processing that occurred when attention was explicitly directed to the movement.
Behaviorally, children with ASD could distinguish biological motion from non-biological motion with similar accuracy to their neurotypical peers. However, the EEG recordings revealed a key distinction: when children with autism were focused on dot color—rather than on whether the dots depicted human movement—their brains showed reduced neural sensitivity to biological motion. In other words, automatic neural processing of another person’s movements appeared diminished in the ASD group unless the task explicitly required attention to those movements.
“If the brain is less likely to process body movements automatically, a child may miss nonverbal cues unless they make a deliberate effort to notice them,” Knight explained. “Recognizing this pattern could help shape new strategies to support social understanding for people with autism.”
John Foxe, Ph.D., the study’s lead author, emphasized the broader implications: “These findings offer insight into how individuals with autism may perceive unspoken aspects of communication. Understanding these neural processing differences is a step toward making social environments more inclusive.”
Co-authors include Ed Freedman, Ph.D. (University of Rochester Medical Center), John Butler, Ph.D., Aaron Krakowski, and Sophie Molholm, Ph.D. (Einstein College of Medicine). Funding was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health, the University of Rochester Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center (UR-IDDRC), and the Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (RFK-IDDRC).
About this autism research news
Author: Kelsie Smith Hayduk
Source: University of Rochester
Contact: Kelsie Smith Hayduk – University of Rochester
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access.
“Attentional influences on neural processing of biological motion in typically developing children and those on the autism spectrum” by John Foxe et al. Molecular Autism
Abstract
Attentional influences on neural processing of biological motion in typically developing children and those on the autism spectrum
Background
Biological motion conveys rich socially relevant information about others’ actions, intentions, and emotional states, forming a foundation for social cognition and interaction. Because atypical social communication is a core feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), researchers have proposed that altered neural processing of biological motion could contribute to social differences observed in autism. Previous studies provide mixed evidence, and variability across research designs has made it difficult to draw firm conclusions. This study examined whether attention modulates biological motion processing differently in children with ASD compared to typically developing children.
Methods
We recorded high-density electroencephalographic (EEG) signals while participants watched point-light displays representing upright, inverted, and scrambled biological motion. The study used two task conditions to probe both intentional (explicit) and unintentional (automatic) processing of biological motion. Participants included 27 children and adolescents with ASD and 35 typically developing (NT) controls, allowing comparison of spatiotemporal neural responses across groups.
Results
Although children with ASD performed similarly to NT controls on behavioral measures of biological motion discrimination, EEG data revealed reduced automatic selective processing of upright biological motion compared with scrambled motion in the ASD group. This reduced neural specificity was less apparent when the task required focused attention on biological motion, indicating that explicit attention can compensate for diminished automatic processing. Additionally, neural responses during an early visual potential (the N1 period) showed relationships with measures of social functioning (Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale-Socialization) in the ASD group but not in NT participants.
Limitations
This cross-sectional study cannot determine whether atypical attention to biological motion causes later social-communication differences. The sample was also limited to children with average or above-average cognitive ability, which may affect generalizability to the broader autism population.
Conclusions
The data indicate that while children with ASD can discriminate biological motion when explicitly directed to do so, they show reduced automatic neural specificity for biological motion processing. This diminished automatic processing could influence the development of higher-order social cognition and suggests avenues for interventions that support attention to socially relevant motion cues.