TY - JOUR TI - Perception in autism does not adhere to Weber’s law AU - Hadad, Bat-Sheva AU - Schwartz, Sivan A2 - Behrens, Timothy E A2 - Carrasco, Marisa A2 - Burr, David Charles VL - 8 PY - 2019 DA - 2019/03/04 SP - e42223 C1 - eLife 2019;8:e42223 DO - 10.7554/eLife.42223 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42223 AB - Perceptual atypicalities are a widely acknowledged but poorly understood feature of autism. We demonstrate here a striking violation of one of the most adaptive psychophysical computations – Weber’s law – in high-functioning individuals with autism. JNDs based on the best-fitting psychometric functions were measured for size visual judgments (Exp. 1), weight haptic discrimination (Exp. 2), and illusive perception of weight (brightness-weight illusion; Exp. 3). Results for the typically developed group confirmed Weber’s law, demonstrating a linear increase in JNDs with intensity, resulting in constant fractions across intensities. The results for the ASD, in contrast, showed no scaling of JNDs with intensity; instead, fractions decreased linearly with intensity. In striking contrast to its consistency in typical perception, Weber’s law does not hold for visual and haptic perception in autism. These robust modulations in psychophysical computations, demonstrated for different domains of perception, suggest a modality-independent, low-level mechanism driving altered perception in autism. KW - Autism KW - perception KW - Weber's law JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -