Date: Friday, March 20,  2026
Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Location: Simons Center Conference room 46-6011 + Zoom [https://mit.zoom.us/j/93006436034]

Speaker: Lukas Vogelsang,  Ph.D.
Affiliation: Simons Postdoctoral Fellow, Sinha Lab, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT

Talk title: Studies of temporal processing and prediction in autism

Abstract: The processing of temporal structure in our sensory environment critically subserves perceptual organization. In this talk, I will present findings from our recently completed SPARK study examining temporal processing in autistic and non-autistic adults. Across two experiments probing visual temporal correlation detection and sensorimotor entrainment to visual and auditory metronomic sequences, autistic individuals showed fully typical performance. These findings suggest preserved mechanisms for key aspects of temporal processing that may provide a stable foundation for perceptual organization, even amid reported challenges in other timing-related domains, such as temporal prediction. I will then present an ongoing SPARK study explicitly assessing such temporal prediction across paradigms spanning binary cue-outcome learning, continuous time-series prediction, and the prediction of plausible continuations of video sequences. Together, these studies help reveal which aspects of temporal processing and prediction are impaired, preserved, or enhanced in autism, and help test theoretical frameworks of perceptual organization and predictive processing in autism.