Most familiar odors are complex mixtures of volatile molecules, which the olfactory system automatically synthesizes into a perceptual whole. However, odors are rarely encountered in isolation; thus, the brain must also separate distinct odor objects from complex and variable backgrounds. In vision, autistic traits are associated with superior performance in tasks that require focus on the local features of a perceptual scene. The aim of the present study was to determine whether the same advantage was observed in the analysis of olfactory scenes. To do this, we compared the ability of 1) 40 young adults (aged 16–35) with high (n = 20) and low levels of autistic traits and 2) 20 children (aged 7–11), with (n = 10) and without an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, to identify individual odor objects presented within odor mixtures. First, we used a 4-alternative forced choice task to confirm that both adults and children were able to reliably identify 8 blended fragrances, representing food-related odors, when presented individually. We then used the same forced choice format to test participants’ ability to identify the odors when they were combined in either binary or ternary mixtures. Adults with high levels of autistic traits showed superior performance on binary but not ternary mixture trials, whereas children with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis outperformed age-matched neurotypical peers, irrespective of mixture complexity. These findings indicate that the local processing advantages associated with high levels of autistic traits in visual tasks are also apparent in a task requiring analytical processing of odor mixtures.

中文翻译：

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混合物中成分气味的出色识别与儿童和成人的自闭症特征有关。

最常见的气味是挥发性分子的复杂混合物，嗅觉系统会自动将其合成为可感知的整体。但是，很少会孤立地闻到气味。因此，大脑还必须将复杂和可变背景下的独特气味对象分开。在视觉上，自闭特质与在需要专注于感知场景的局部特征的任务中的出色表现相关。本研究的目的是确定在嗅觉场景分析中是否观察到相同的优势。为此，我们比较了1）40名自闭症特征高（n = 20）和低水平的年轻成年人（16-35岁）和2）20名儿童（7-11岁）的能力（n= 10）并且没有自闭症谱系障碍诊断，可以识别气味混合物中出现的单个气味对象。首先，我们使用4个替代选择选项来确认成年人和儿童在单独呈现时都能可靠地识别出8种混合香料，代表与食物相关的气味。然后，我们使用相同的强制选择格式来测试参与者将其混合为二元或三元混合物时识别气味的能力。具有高自闭症特征的成年人在二元混合试验中表现出优异的表现，但在三元混合试验中却没有，而自闭症谱系障碍诊断的儿童则优于年龄匹配的神经型同龄人，而不论混合复杂性如何。