Predictive action perception from explicit intention information in autism
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Abstract
Social difficulties in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may originate from a reduced top-down modulation of sensory information that prevents the spontaneous attribution of intentions to observed behaviour. However, although people with autism are able to explicitly reason about others' mental states, the effect of abstract intention information on perceptual processes has remained untested. ASD participants (n = 23) and a neurotypical (NT) control group (n = 23) observed a hand either reaching for an object or withdrawing from it. Prior to action onset, the participant either instructed the actor to "Take it" or "Leave it", or heard the actor state "I'll take it" or "I'll leave it", which provided an explicit intention that was equally likely to be congruent or incongruent with the subsequent action. The hand disappeared before completion of the action, and participants reported the last seen position of the tip of the index finger by touching the screen. NT participants exhibited a predictive bias in response to action direction (reaches perceived nearer the object, withdrawals perceived farther away), and in response to prior knowledge of the actor's intentions (nearer the object after "Take it", farther away after "Leave it"). However, ASD participants exhibited a predictive perceptual bias only in response to the explicit intentions, but not in response to the motion of the action itself. Perception in ASD is not immune from top-down modulation. However, the information must be explicitly presented independently from the stimulus itself, and not inferred from cues inherent in the stimulus.
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Individuals with autism spectrum disorder had intact social perception.
“but intact social perception, that is the ability to identify and utilize social cues to make judgments about social roles, rules, relationships, context, or other characteristics of other people (Hudson et al., 2021).”
From Predictive coding in neuropsychiatric disorders: a systematic transdiagnostic review. (2025) · cites this paper as Hudson et al., 2021
The Discussion reports intact use of explicit intention statements to shape action perception in participants with ASD, but no perceptual shift in response to goals implied by observed movements. The Conclusion likewise limits top-down modulation to information explicitly provided. These passages do not support the unqualified claim that social perception, broadly defined, was intact; page numbers are not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredPeople with autism spectrum disorder were able to make predictions about other people's goals only when the goal was explicit, whereas they showed prediction deficits when the goal was implicit.
“Specifically, people with ASD were able to make predictions about other people ' s goals only when the goal was explicit, whereas they showed prediction deficits when the goal was implicit (Hudson et al., 2021).”
From Predictive coding in neuropsychiatric disorders: a systematic transdiagnostic review. (2025) · cites this paper as Hudson et al., 2021
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- Authors
- Hudson, M., Nicholson, T., Kharko, A., McKenzie, R., & Bach, P.
- Affiliations
- National College of Ireland (IE)
- University of Plymouth (GB)
- University of Aberdeen (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Hudson, Matthew
- Venue
- Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
- Published
- 2021-05-23
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1556-1566
- ISSN
- 1069-9384 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-5320
- OpenAlex
- W3086018351
- Cited by
- 19
- References
- 59
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 4
- FWCI
- 2.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- NORMA (acceptedVersion)
- PEARL (University of Plymouth) (submittedVersion)
- Aberdeen University Research Archive (Aberdeen University) (submittedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- TRAP@NCI (National College of Ireland) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/J019178/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, action perception, top-down modulation, intention attribution, social cognition, theory of mind, perceptual inference
- MeSH terms
- Autism Spectrum Disorder, Autistic Disorder, Hand, Humans, Social Perception, Intention
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