Think global, act local: Do local visual processing biases explain proficiency in observational drawing in non-autistic individuals?

Exceptional graphical abilities in autistic savants have been explained by enhanced local visual processing, coupled with an intact global advantage effect under voluntary selective attention (Plaisted, Swettenham and Rees, 1999 Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry40733–742). Furthermore, it has been suggested that non-autistic children who are precocious at drawing exhibit the same local processing hallmarks as their autistic savant peers (Drake, Redash, Coleman, Haimson and Winner, 2010 Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders40762–773). Similar effects have been seen in artistic adults whose drawing experience was correlated with reduced holistic processing in face perception tasks (Zhou, Cheng, Zang and Wong, 2011). In an initial study performance on the embedded figures task (EFT), a measure of local visual processing, independently predicted both self-perceived and objectively assessed drawing ability. This finding was examined in a study that probed both local and global visual processing in art students and controls using Navon shape stimuli, the Block Design Task (Shah and Frith, 1993 Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry341351–1364) and the attention to detail subscale of the Autism Spectrum Quotient. The results are discussed with reference to perceptual enhancement theories of observational drawing abilitystatus: publishe