Senju Atsushi, Kikuchi Yukiko, Hasegawa Toshikazu, Tojo Yoshikuni, Osanai Hiroo
Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, The Henry Wellcome Building, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX, UK.
Brain Cogn. 2008 Jul;67(2):127-39. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2007.12.001. Epub 2008 Jan 28.
Atypical processing of eye contact is one of the significant characteristics of individuals with autism, but the mechanism underlying atypical direct gaze processing is still unclear. This study used a visual search paradigm to examine whether the facial context would affect direct gaze detection in children with autism. Participants were asked to detect target gazes presented among distracters with different gaze directions. The target gazes were either direct gaze or averted gaze, which were either presented alone (Experiment 1) or within facial context (Experiment 2). As with the typically developing children, the children with autism, were faster and more efficient to detect direct gaze than averted gaze, whether or not the eyes were presented alone or within faces. In addition, face inversion distorted efficient direct gaze detection in typically developing children, but not in children with autism. These results suggest that children with autism use featural information to detect direct gaze, whereas typically developing children use configural information to detect direct gaze.
眼神接触的非典型处理是自闭症个体的显著特征之一，但非典型直视处理背后的机制仍不清楚。本研究采用视觉搜索范式来检验面部背景是否会影响自闭症儿童对直视的检测。参与者被要求在不同注视方向的干扰物中检测目标注视。目标注视要么是直视，要么是回避注视，它们要么单独呈现（实验1），要么在面部背景中呈现（实验2）。与正常发育儿童一样，自闭症儿童无论眼睛是单独呈现还是在面部中呈现，检测直视都比回避注视更快、更有效。此外，面部倒置会干扰正常发育儿童有效检测直视，但不会干扰自闭症儿童。这些结果表明，自闭症儿童利用特征信息来检测直视，而正常发育儿童利用构型信息来检测直视。
