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The Rubber Hand Illusion Reveals Proprioceptive and Sensorimotor Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterised by differences in unimodal and multimodal sensory and proprioceptive processing, with complex biases towards local over global processing. Many of these elements are implicated in versions of the rubber hand illusion (RHI), which were therefore studied in high-functioning individuals with ASD and a typically developing control group. Both groups experienced the illusion. A number of differences were found, related to proprioception and sensorimotor processes. The ASD group showed reduced sensitivity to visuotactile-proprioceptive discrepancy but more accurate proprioception. This group also differed on acceleration in subsequent reach trials. Results are discussed in terms of weak top-down integration and precision-accuracy trade-offs. The RHI appears to be a useful tool for investigating multisensory processing in ASD.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Australian Research Council Grants DP0984572 and FT100100322, and a Monash University Research Accelerator Grant to JH; PGE is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Clinical Research Fellowship (546244). The authors wish to thank Amity Green for assistance with data collection and Uta Frith for helpful advice and comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Bryan Paton & Jakob Hohwy

  2. Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Peter G. Enticott

  3. School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Bryan Paton

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  1. Bryan Paton
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  3. Peter G. Enticott
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Correspondence to Jakob Hohwy.

Electronic supplementary material

Appendix: Supplementary Results

Appendix: Supplementary Results

Item (Rubber Hand vs. Cardboard Box)

There was a main effect of this factor, F(1, 32) = 39.53, p < .01, a two-way interaction with participant group F(1, 32) = 4.92, p = .03, and a three way interaction with stimulation (manual/machine touch) F(1, 32) = 4.36, p = .05.

This interaction was explored in separate two way repeated measures ANOVAs for controls and ASD respectively. For control participants, as expected, there was a main effect for the item factor, F(1, 16) = 28.24, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .72, such that they rated the illusion stronger when they observed the touch performed on a rubber hand (M = 36.57, SD = 15.07) than when the touch was done on a cardboard box (M = 25.32, SD = 16.23). The ASD group also had a main effect of this factor, F(1, 16) = 11.51, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .27, such that they rated the illusion somewhat stronger when touch was done on the rubber hand (M = 33.11, SD = 20.65) than when there was touch on the cardboard box (M = 27.73, SD = 19.17).

In addition, in the ANOVAs for both groups there was a main effect of stimulation. For controls, F(1, 16) = 4.60, p = .05, Cohen’s d = .15, suggesting controls rated manual touch somewhat higher (M = 32.08, SD = 14.58) than touch by the machine (M = 29.87, SD = 15.74). For ASD participants, F(1, 16) = 4.91, p < .04, Cohen’s d = .13, suggesting the ASD participants rated manual touch somewhat higher (M = 31.70, SD = 20.46) than touch by the machine (M = 29.15, SD = 19.11).

Stimulation (Manual Touch vs. Machine Touch)

There was the expected main effect of this factor F(1, 32) = 9.48, p < .01, with participants rating manual touch somewhat higher (M = 31.82, SD = 17.77) than machine touch (M = 29.51, SD = 17.50), Cohen’s d = 0.13. There was a two-way interaction of this factor with the three-level statement factor F(2, 64) = 4.28, p = .22. Post hoc analysis revealed that this interaction was mainly due to differences in responses to S1, t(33) = 3.09, p < .01, Cohen’s d = .22, with responses to this statement being higher during human touch (M = 41.10, SD = 23.47) than during machine touch (M = 36.17, SD = 21.32). Differences in responses to S2 and S3 did not reach significance after correction for multiple comparisons.

Reach Trial: Further Analysis

Two further main effects were found for the full 5 s period. There was a main effect for goggles, F(1,32) = 4.66, p = .04, Cohen’s d = .42. Participants reached with more acceleration with goggles (M = 264.66, SD = 41.22) than without goggles (M = 249.01, SD = 32.84). A main effect here is to be expected since there is a difference between seeing the cylindrical target object on the screen in the goggles vs. seeing it without goggles and reach movement would reflect this difference. A main effect was also found for the item factor, F(1,32) = 5.23, p = .03, Cohen’s d = .13. Participants’ reaching acceleration was somewhat stronger when viewing the box (M = 258.67, SD = 30.47) than the rubber hand (M = 255.04, SD = 31.68). This may indicate that they were somehow influenced by the rubber hand and compensated for the size of it in their reaching and/or wrist movement.

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Paton, B., Hohwy, J. & Enticott, P.G. The Rubber Hand Illusion Reveals Proprioceptive and Sensorimotor Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 42, 1870–1883 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-011-1430-7

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