LOOKING STRATEGIES IN SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN WITH AUTISM: INITIAL REACTIONS AFTER SCENE CUTS IN MOVIES OF COMPLEX SOCIAL INTERACTION

Background: Previous research has shown that when watching scenes of social interaction individuals with autism look less at people's eyes and more at people's mouths than their typically-developing peers.  A related study found that following a movie scene cut, adolescents with autism make initial fixations in a socially random manner: they demonstrate no preference between areas with social information (character's body, mouth, or eyes) and non-social object areas.  In contrast, age- and IQ- matched typically-developing adolescents show a preference for making initial fixations to the area with the most social information: the eyes of onscreen characters. The current study downward extends this research to focus on young children with autism, aged 5-13.  This study explores the scanning strategies (sequence of shifting visual attention and initial, secondary and subsequent fixations) employed by individuals with autism across scene cuts in movies depicting social interaction.

Objectives: To examine the temporal dynamics of visual fixation patterns following a scene cut in children with autism and in matched, typically-developing peers.

Methods: Participants viewed scenes of dynamic social interaction.  Scene cuts provided instances where new visual information required a viewer to shift attention from an old location (in the previous frame) to a new target location (in the current frame).  Eye-tracking data were collected across scene cuts to measure visual scanning strategies. 

Results: The initial fixations of individuals with autism occurred in a socially random manner, whereas typically-developing peers showed a strong preference for making initial fixations towards the eyes of the onscreen characters. 

Conclusions: The present study suggests that initial reactions are consistent across childhood and adolescence. Furthermore, the looking strategy used by participants with autism is significantly correlated with measures of their social disability (as obtained by the ADOS).