people with autism often have visual avoidance problems, use stimming, have balance and postural anomalies etc as well as speech delays. When we consider that with a computer we can adjust a picture with brightness AND contrast controls. Now we know the eye can adapt to different levels of brightness, but how does the eye/brain connection work the contrast control. If a scene has low contrast then there is a lack of data to attract attention which would consequently lead to reduced cognition and this simple concept explains any of the apparent symptoms of autism. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Hi Geoff: if contrast were an issue, might not contrast sensitivity be expected to be reduced in that population? I've never posed the question before, so while I have the affordable Hamilton-Veale chart, I've not tested the question with them. Dopamine modulates CS, BTW. If low power prism is stimulatory for DA release, it may help explain some of the clinical observations seen in this population on many occasions. Just read yesterday that the "autism gene" is found in everybody, so is it REALLY an autism gene?
it is hard to anwer this since when you know one case you only know ONE case. But hypersensivity is a comorbidity and therefore some subjects might have light sensivity issues, but eye contact is a totally different matter. It is not yet clear why. Is it lack of social skills, is it anxiety for being invaded by the other through the eyes (to open up), is it lack of interest in the other, shyness, absorbtion by linguistice activity... many things have been suggested and/or recorded. It can be trained as part of a coping strategy, so I don't think it is physical. I believe it is cognitive and the question I would ask is if how ASD subjects feel about being looked in the eyes (fMRI or so). I guess that to find out why, one needs to find out how they experience the mirrored image themselves. Most subconscious motivation is based on personal preference. I'm just thinking while typing. So don't take it for granted.
If indeed there are any consistent visual abnormalities in autism, I think the first place to look for any primary sensory disorder is in the vestibular system in the inner ear. Inner ear hypersensitivity parsimoniously explains speech delay, and balance and postural disorders. The vestibular system regulates eye movements. In migraine, the inner ear is often involved, and the greater the objective evidence of peripheral vestibular disorder, the more likely are there to be migraine visual aurae.
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