Background: Visual orienting is inconsistently reported to be impaired in autism. Methods: We conducted a meta-analysis on visual orienting in autism. We focused on studies that used a Posner-type task. A total of 18 research papers published between 1993 and 2011 were included in our meta-analysis. We examined the effects of differences in experimental design as well as differences in participant samples. We examined both orienting reaction times of participants with autism, and the effect size relative to comparison group in each experiment. Results: We found that participants with autism oriented across conditions (mean orienting effect = 40.73 ms), which was of an overall smaller magnitude than that of comparison groups (Cohen's d = 0.44). Participants with autism were most impaired on arrow cue tasks, and least impaired on eye-gaze cue tasks, more impaired with rapid trials, and the impairment increased with age. Conclusions: Variations in experimental design and participant age group contribute to whether participants with autism appear impaired at visual orienting. Critical gaps exist in the literature; developmental studies are needed across and comparing broader age ranges, and more attention should be focused on basic endogenous orienting processes.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 December 2013.
All research outputs
#8,294,963
of 25,654,806 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
#3,283
of 7,741 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#84,568
of 290,396 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
#433
of 861 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,654,806 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 67th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,741 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 56% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 290,396 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 861 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 48th percentile – i.e., 48% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
