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Saturday, May 17, 2008
Champagne Terrace/Bordeaux (Novotel London West)
Background:
The ability to perceive and accurately interpret social cues is imperative to our understanding of the social world. Social impairment is a major characteristic of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Conflicting findings have been reported in visual fixation patterns when participants are presented with stimuli containing another person’s eyes (Klin et al. 2002; Dalton et al. 2005; Van der Geest, 2002).
Objectives:
1. To investigate whether visual fixation patterns for participants with ASD when free-viewing scenes containing a person are similar or different from the visual fixation patterns of typically developing control participants.
2. To investigate whether the eye-gaze direction of another person influences visual fixation patterns in typically developing participants and those with ASD.
Methods:
24 high-functioning adolescents with ASD and 24 control participants completed a free-viewing eye-tracking study.
A series of static scenes depicting a person looking straight out of the photo or towards an object in the photo were displayed for 5 seconds each.
Results:
Despite the face of the person in the photo only covering approximately 2% of the total area of the photo, ASD participants spent approximately 25% of their total viewing time fixating in this region. The total gaze duration on the top half of the face was significantly longer than on the lower half of the face - this was similar to matched controls, although participants with ASD were slower to first fixate the face.
Evidence for spontaneous eye-gaze following in both groups was found.
Conclusions:
Overall viewing patterns of adolescents with ASD are surprisingly similar to matched controls when photos of a person in a complex scene are viewed. This indicates that high-functioning adolescents with ASD have a strong spontaneous interest in people and their eye-gaze direction, contrary to previous suggestions by Klin et al. (2002) and Dalton et al. (2005).
The ability to perceive and accurately interpret social cues is imperative to our understanding of the social world. Social impairment is a major characteristic of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Conflicting findings have been reported in visual fixation patterns when participants are presented with stimuli containing another person’s eyes (Klin et al. 2002; Dalton et al. 2005; Van der Geest, 2002).
Objectives:
1. To investigate whether visual fixation patterns for participants with ASD when free-viewing scenes containing a person are similar or different from the visual fixation patterns of typically developing control participants.
2. To investigate whether the eye-gaze direction of another person influences visual fixation patterns in typically developing participants and those with ASD.
Methods:
24 high-functioning adolescents with ASD and 24 control participants completed a free-viewing eye-tracking study.
A series of static scenes depicting a person looking straight out of the photo or towards an object in the photo were displayed for 5 seconds each.
Results:
Despite the face of the person in the photo only covering approximately 2% of the total area of the photo, ASD participants spent approximately 25% of their total viewing time fixating in this region. The total gaze duration on the top half of the face was significantly longer than on the lower half of the face - this was similar to matched controls, although participants with ASD were slower to first fixate the face.
Evidence for spontaneous eye-gaze following in both groups was found.
Conclusions:
Overall viewing patterns of adolescents with ASD are surprisingly similar to matched controls when photos of a person in a complex scene are viewed. This indicates that high-functioning adolescents with ASD have a strong spontaneous interest in people and their eye-gaze direction, contrary to previous suggestions by Klin et al. (2002) and Dalton et al. (2005).