Social Perception Deficits In Children with ASD : An Eye-Tracking Study Using Social Video Clips

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterized by important impairments in social interaction. Previous eye-tracking studies have showed that adults with ASD lack preference to social stimuli and have a tendency to look more to non-social features in a social scene, which can be accounted as one possible explanation for their difficulties in social interaction.

Objectives: To use eye-tracking during video clips presentation to study social perception in children with ASD compared to typical developing children.

Methods: ASD diagnosis was based on DSM IV-R and ADI-R criteria. Autism clinical severity was assessed with ADI-R total score. Participants were 22 ASD children (mean age = 11,8 ± 3,1; 20 boys; mean IQ = 81,8 ± 29,3) and 21 typical developing children (mean age = 11,3 ± 2,5; 15 boys). Eye-tracking studies (Tobii T120 Eye Tracker) were performed during presentation of social relevant video clips (film and cartoon versions), non-social control video clip and during presentation of static pictures taken from each video clip. Gaze parameters were measured in areas with strong social contents (eyes, mouth, and face) and in non-social areas.

Results:   Children with ASD spent significantly less time examining strong social content areas (eyes, mouth, and face) and more time examining non-social areas when presented with both video clips and static pictures. Such deficits were significantly more prominent in children with severe ASD (global ADI-R > 30). In addition, the differences between the two groups were more substantial in dynamical scenes comparing to static scenes, as well as in film version comparing to cartoon version. There were no significant differences between the two groups in the non-social control video clip.

Conclusions: Children with ASD showed a lack of preference to social information when compared to typically development children, as well as a preference to non-social contents, and the deficits were linked to autistic severity. These results indicate the presence of abnormalities in social perception process in ASD. Social deficits were more prominent in more ecological situations (video clips), suggesting this kind of stimuli is more suitable to study social perception in ASD.