Safaa Abassi Abu Rukab¹ (), Shaul Hochstein¹; ¹Hebrew University, Jerusalem, ²ELSC Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, ³Life Sciences Inst

Visual search has been classified as easy feature search, with rapid target detection and little set-size dependence, versus slower difficult search, focused attention and set-size dependent speed. Reverse Hierarchy Theory attributes these classes to rapid high-cortical-level vision at a glance versus low-level vision with scrutiny, attributing easy search to high-level representations. Accordingly, faces “pop out” of heterogeneous object photographs. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties recognizing faces, and yet we found this disability doesn’t disturb face search. We now explore visual categorization abilities in individuals with ASD, focusing on differences between basic-level and superordinate-level tasks. Participants completed a visual search task, identifying objects from superordinate categories such as animals, food, body parts and furniture, versus basic level categories such as dogs, apples, arms, chairs, and we analyzed reaction times (RT) and their set-size slopes for both categorization levels. We find that individuals with ASD encounter greater challenges when performing superordinate categorization compared to basic categorization. Superordinate-level search RTs increase more steeply with set size (92 ms/item), indicating higher cognitive demands as task complexity increases. Conversely, basic-level categorization shows less pronounced RT increase (50 ms/item), suggesting more automatic, less effortful cognitive processes. Finally, variability in individual performance, particularly at the superordinate level, highlights participant-specific influences on cognitive processing speed and suggests that different individuals with ASD may experience varying levels of cognitive challenge during complex tasks.

Acknowledgements: Israel Science Foundation (ISF)