Differences Between Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typically Developing Individuals During Visual Information Processing-A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Focusing on Visual Event-Related Potentials

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show deficits in the processing of visual stimuli. This systematic review summarized the differences in visual event-related potential (ERP) components among ASD and typically developing individuals. Major databases were searched for finding eligible studies that investigated differences in visual ERP components between ASD and typically developing individuals. Sixty-three eligible studies were found. Analyses showed that the mean differences were significant between ASD and typically developing subjects for N100 amplitude at the anterior brain region for non-face stimuli, N170 amplitude and latency at the posterior brain region for face processing, and P200 latency at the posterior region. Characteristics of stimuli including the emotional content, predictability, familiarity and the reactions that participants were asked to perform during visual stimuli processing were all important confounding factors. The highlighted ERP components can be used as potential biomarkers for the future ASD detection systems. ERP analyses could obtain a promising tool for investigating the impaired visual information processing in ASD.