Figure 2.

Behavioural results. (a) Absolute mean error, i.e., number of dots difference between estimate and actual presentation. A significant effect due to the meaningfulness of dot patterns was seen only in TD participants; TD participants made larger errors for the dots arranged in animal shapes. These results suggest that TD subject's ability to estimate numerosity is affected by their global perception of dot patterns. (b) Absolute mean error according to the number of dots displayed in the pattern for both group and condition. A significant numerosity × group interaction was observed, revealing that an actual difference existed between ASD and TD when estimating large numerosities only. Furthermore, a numerosity × shape interaction indicated that the main shape effect observed on this variable was also driven by large numerosity patterns. These results suggest that the number of dots impact estimation abilities in a different way in ASD and TD participants.