Selective attention to a sensory modality has been observed experimentally in studies of the modality-shift effect – a relative performance benefit for targets preceded by a target in the same modality, compared to a different modality. Differences in selective attention are commonly observed in autism and we investigated whether exogenous (automatic) shift costs between modalities are increased. Autistic adults and neurotypical controls made speeded discrimination responses to simple visual, tactile and auditory targets. Shift costs were observed for each target modality in participant response times and were largest for auditory targets, reflective of fast responses on auditory repeat trials. Critically, shift costs were similar between the groups. However, integrating speed and accuracy data using drift-diffusion modelling revealed that shift costs in drift rates (reflecting the quality of information extracted from the stimulus) were reduced for autistic participants compared with neurotypicals. It may be that, unlike neurotypicals, there is little difference between attention within and between sensory modalities for autistic people. This finding also highlights the benefit of combining reaction time and accuracy data using decision models to better characterise selective attention in autism.

在模态转换效应的研究中通过实验观察到对感官模态的选择性关注 - 与不同模态相比，在相同模态中的目标之前的目标的相对性能优势。在自闭症中通常观察到选择性注意的差异，我们调查了模式之间的外源性（自动）转换成本是否增加。自闭症成年人和神经典型控制者对简单的视觉、触觉和听觉目标做出了快速的歧视反应。在参与者响应时间中观察到每个目标模式的转换成本，并且听觉目标的转换成本最大，反映了听觉重复试验的快速响应。至关重要的是，各组之间的轮班成本相似。然而，使用漂移扩散模型整合速度和准确性数据表明，与神经典型患者相比，自闭症参与者的漂移率的转移成本（反映从刺激中提取的信息质量）降低。可能是，与典型神经症患者不同，自闭症患者的注意力内部和感觉方式之间几乎没有区别。这一发现还突出了使用决策模型将反应时间和准确性数据结合起来以更好地表征自闭症中的选择性注意的好处。