International Meeting for Autism Research (May 7 - 9, 2009): Do Children with ASD Use Referential Gaze to Learn the Name of An Object?: An Eye-Tracking Study

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Northwest Hall (Chicago Hilton)

2:30 PM

H. Akechi , The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

A. Senju , School of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Y. Kikuchi , The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Y. Tojo , Ibaraki University, Japan

H. Osanai , Musashino Higashi Center for Education and Research, Musashino Higashi Gakuen, Musashino-shi, Japan

T. Hasegawa , The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Background: Some studies reported that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) do not refer to other's gaze when they learn novel word-object association (e.g. Baron-Cohen et al., 1997). However, it is not clear whether it is due to the difficulty in following speaker's gaze, or the difficulty in encoding the referential nature of the gaze.

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between gaze following and the use of referential gaze in the learning of novel word-object association in children with ASD, by measuring their fixations with eye-tracking device.

Methods: Participants consisted of 16 children with ASD (mean age 9.2; range 6-11) and 16 typically developing (TD) children (mean age 8.7; range 6-11), who were matched on VMA. The schematic face (speaker) and two novel objects were presented on the monitor. When the participant looked at one of the objects for 300 ms, the speaker uttered a novel word (e.g. toma) and simultaneously shifted his gaze either to the object being looked at by the participant (congruent condition) or the other object (incongruent condition), which was repeated twice. After that, 4 novel objects (2 previously presented and 2 new) were presented and the speaker asked participants "which one is xxx (e.g. toma)?", and their manual responses (i.e. pointing to one of the objects) and fixations were recorded.

Results: Total looking time to speaker's face did not differ between groups. In the congruent condition, equal numbers of children in each group (13) chose the object being looked at by the speaker. In incongruent condition, in contrast, fewer children with ASD (10) than TD children (15) chose the object being looked at by the speaker. In addition, children with ASD who chose the correct object followed speaker's gaze more than those who failed to choose the correct object.

Conclusions: Results suggest that children with ASD, on average, have difficulty in using referential gaze of the speaker to learn the name of a novel object, which may be related to the reduced spontaneous gaze following.

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