Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to determine whether individuals with Asperger's disorder exhibit difficulty in switching attention from a local level to a global level. Eleven participants with Asperger's disorder and 11 age- and gender-matched healthy controls performed a switching task using Navon-type hierarchical stimuli. As a result, the both groups exhibited the benefit of level-repetition at both levels. In addition, individuals with Asperger's disorder exhibited difficulty in switching attention from a local level to a global level compared to control individuals. These findings suggested that there is a problem of inhibitory mechanism that influences the output of enhanced local visual-perceptual processing in Asperger's disorder.
