Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) of electroencephalographic (EEG) data represents a revolutionary approach to investigate how the brain encodes information. By considering complex interactions among spatio-temporal features at the individual level, MVPA overcomes the limitations of univariate techniques, which often fail to account for the significant inter- and intra-individual neural variability. This is particularly relevant when studying clinical populations, and therefore MVPA of EEG data has recently started to be employed as a tool to study cognition in brain disorders. Here, we review the insights offered by this methodology in the study of anomalous patterns of neural activity in conditions such as autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, dyslexia, neurological and neurodegenerative disorders, within different cognitive domains (perception, attention, memory, consciousness). Despite potential drawbacks that should be attentively addressed, these studies reveal a peculiar sensitivity of MVPA in unveiling dysfunctional and compensatory neurocognitive dynamics of information processing, which often remain blind to traditional univariate approaches. Such higher sensitivity in characterizing individual neurocognitive profiles can provide unique opportunities to optimise assessment and promote personalised interventions.

The visual system operates rhythmically, through timely coordinated perceptual and attentional processes, involving coexisting patterns in the alpha range (7-13 Hz) at ∼10 Hz, and theta (3-6 Hz) range, respectively. Here we aimed to disambiguate whether variations in task requirements, in terms of attentional demand and side of target presentation, might influence the occurrence of either perceptual or attentional components in behavioral visual performance, also uncovering possible differences in the sampling mechanisms of the two cerebral hemispheres. To this aim, visuospatial performance was densely sampled in two versions of a visual detection task where the side of target presentation was fixed (Task 1), with participants monitoring one single hemifield, or randomly varying across trials, with participants monitoring both hemifields simultaneously (Task 2). Performance was analyzed through spectral decomposition, to reveal behavioral oscillatory patterns. For Task 1, when attentional resources where focused on one hemifield only, the results revealed an oscillatory pattern fluctuating at ∼10 Hz and ∼6-9 Hz, for stimuli presented to the left and the right hemifield, respectively, possibly representing a perceptual sampling mechanism with different efficiency within the left and the right hemispheres. For Task 2, when attentional resources were simultaneously deployed to the two hemifields, a ∼5 Hz rhythm emerged both for stimuli presented to the left and the right, reflecting an attentional sampling process, equally supported by the two hemispheres. Overall, the results suggest that distinct perceptual and attentional sampling mechanisms operate at different oscillatory frequencies and their prevalence and hemispheric lateralization depends on task requirements.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with a hyper‐focused visual attentional style, impacting higher‐order social and affective domains. The understanding of such peculiarity can benefit from the use of multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) of high‐resolution electroencephalography (EEG) data, which has proved to be a powerful technique to investigate the hidden neural dynamics orchestrating sensory and cognitive processes. Here, we recorded EEG in typically developing (TD) children and in children with ASD during a visuo‐spatial attentional task where attention was exogenously captured by a small (zoom‐in) or large (zoom‐out) cue in the visual field before the appearance of a target at different eccentricities. MVPA was performed both in the cue‐locked period, to reveal potential differences in the modulation of the attentional focus, and in the target‐locked period, to reveal potential cascade effects on stimulus processing. Cue‐locked MVPA revealed that while in the TD group the pattern of neural activity contained information about the cue mainly before the target appearance, the ASD group showed a temporally sustained and topographically diffuse significant decoding of the cue neural response even after the target onset, suggesting a delayed extinction of cue‐related neural activity. Crucially, this delayed extinction positively correlated with behavioral measures of attentional hyperfocusing. Results of target‐locked MVPA were coherent with a hyper‐focused attentional profile, highlighting an earlier and stronger decoding of target neural responses in small cue trials in the ASD group. The present findings document a spatially and temporally overrepresented encoding of visual information in ASD, which can constitute one of the main reasons behind their peculiar cognitive style.

Alpha-band (7–13 Hz) activity has been linked to visuo-attentional performance in healthy participants and to impaired functionality of the visual system in a variety of clinical populations including patients with acquired posterior brain lesion and neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. Crucially, several studies suggested that short uni- and multi-sensory rhythmic stimulation (i.e., visual, auditory and audio-visual) administered in the alpha-band effectively induces transient changes in alpha oscillatory activity and improvements in visuo-attentional performance by synchronizing the intrinsic brain oscillations to the external stimulation (neural entrainment). The present review aims to address the current state of the art on the alpha-band sensory entrainment, outlining its potential functional effects and current limitations. Indeed, the results of the alpha-band entrainment studies are currently mixed, possibly due to the different stimulation modalities, task features and behavioral and physiological measures employed in the various paradigms. Furthermore, it is still unknown whether prolonged alpha-band sensory entrainment might lead to long-lasting effects at a neural and behavioral level. Overall, despite the limitations emerging from the current literature, alpha-band sensory entrainment may represent a promising and valuable tool, inducing functionally relevant changes in oscillatory activity, with potential rehabilitative applications in individuals characterized by impaired alpha activity.

The likelihood of integrating audiovisual (AV) information is reflected in the construct of temporal binding window (TBW), which accounts for the differing processing times across sensory regions. Wider TBWs within the autistic and schizotypal spectrums predict the degree of cognitive-perceptual and socio-communicative atypicalities. Alpha oscillations (8-13 Hz) represent an important neural mechanism for AV binding, and consequently alpha-band entrainment can shrink or expand TBWs. However, whether interindividual differences in autistic and schizotypal traits influence TBW modulations under entrainment is unexplored. Here, we used alpha-band sensory AV entrainment to explore how individual traits affect TBW malleability in neurotypical individuals (n = 113), administering rhythmic stimulations at slower (∼8.5 Hz) and faster alpha (∼12 Hz) frequencies before an AV simultaneity judgement task. Participants self-reported autistic and schizotypal traits, and a cluster analysis stratified individuals into three groups: high Cognitive-Perceptual Traits (CPT), high Socio-Affective Traits (SAT), Low Traits (LT). Results revealed that, across groups, upper alpha entrainment narrowed TBWs, enhancing AV temporal acuity. However, following lower alpha stimulation, only the CPT group exhibited wider TBWs, indicating a heightened responsiveness to entrainment stimulation, reflecting bottom-up atypical integration of sensory information into coherent models. Additionally, the typical leading sense asymmetry determining narrower TBWs for auditory-leading sequences was observed only in the LT group, suggesting that even sub-clinical cognitive-perceptual and socio-communicative atypicalities may disrupt basic aspects of cross-modal interactions. These findings suggest that socio-communicative and cognitive-perceptual anomalies associated with autistic and schizotypal traits influence low-level aspects of temporal binding across sensory modalities, including their malleability following alpha-band stimulation.

Perceptual inference arises from integrating sensory evidence with prior knowledge. Causality perception—deciding whether one event causes another—offers a window into this process. We examined how prior experience and individual differences shape causal inference in 150 neurotypical individuals spanning the autism-schizotypy (ASD-SSD) spectrum. Participants judged causality in dynamic collision events with varying temporal delays. Causality judgments were influenced by physical timing (sensory driven) and serial dependence on previous decisions (prior driven). SSD-like individuals showed the strongest serial dependence and ASD-like individuals the weakest. Hierarchical drift diffusion modeling revealed increased causality bias and lower decision thresholds in SSD-like individuals, reflecting a prior-dominated style. ASD-like individuals showed reduced perceptual-history influence and higher thresholds, indicating a sensory-driven approach. Crucially, prior biases and perceptual history were interrelated, suggesting a hierarchical organization of perceptual inference across timescales and linking causality perception to predictive processes shaped by distinct cognitive-perceptual profiles.