Adults with Asperger syndrome are less proficient in identifying actions portrayed with point-light displayed biological motion

The present study investigated the perception of biological motion in healthy adults and adults with Asperger’s or high functioning autism, using an identification task of point-light displayed human actions with or without making contact with objects. Compared to the healthy group (N=30), the AS/HFA group (N=27) had a significantly lower number of correct items and longer response times. Both groups performed better at naming the actions without making contact with objects than those involving objects. Individual differences in the AQ scores correlated with the biological motion task performance such that those exhibited higher autistic traits tended to make more errors and responded more slowly. Our findings suggest that adults with AS/HFA are less proficient in processing biological motion actions.