Background: Eye-tracking has been used to investigate social perception in
autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with variable results. This heterogeneity may be
due to the types of stimuli used. In this study, we investigated whether the
use of moving vs static stimuli or human actors vs cartoons characters would be
more sensitive in detecting gaze abnormalities and discriminating children with
ASD from typically developing children.
Methods: We studied 18 children with ASD (mean age = 12.9 ± 2.9) and 21
typically developing controls (mean age = 11.3 ± 2.5). Gazes were tracked using
Tobii-T120 eye-tracker. Four different types of stimuli were presented: movie
with human actors, cartoon movie, picture with human actors and cartoon
picture. To identify the type of stimuli that best discriminate the ASD group
from the control group, a two-way ANOVA was performed using ecological
dimension [human-actors/cartoon] and presentation form [movie/picture] as
factors.
Results: Children with ASD presented significantly less fixations to eyes
and faces in the movie with human actors and in the picture with human actors.
Children with ASD also presented significantly more fixations to non-social
backgrounds in the movie with human actors and in the cartoon movie. A
significant ecological effect was observed for the reduction in fixations to
the eyes [human-actors > cartoon]. A significant presentation form effect
was observed for the increased fixations to the non-social background [movie
> picture].
Conclusions: The direct comparison of gaze behavior across four different types
of stimuli demonstrates that gaze abnormalities in ASD depend on the type of
stimuli that is used. Our results suggest that general gaze abnormalities in
children with ASD are better detected when using dynamic stimuli, and finer
details of these abnormalities, especially looking less to the eyes, are better
detected in a more ecologically relevant situation presenting human characters.
Full PDF:click
here
(source:SCIRP/Psychiatry)
没有评论:
发表评论