University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Child Dev. 2009 Sep-Oct;80(5):1421-33. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01342.x.
Two experiments investigated attention of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to faces and objects. In both experiments, children (7- to 15-year-olds) detected the difference between 2 visual scenes. Results in Experiment 1 revealed that typically developing children (n = 16) detected the change in faces faster than in objects, whereas children with ASD (n = 16) were equally fast in detecting changes in faces and objects. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 (n = 16 in children with ASD and 22 in typically developing children), which does not require face recognition skill. Results suggest that children with ASD lack an attentional bias toward others' faces, which could contribute to their atypical social orienting.
两个实验研究了自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童对人脸和物体的注意力。在两个实验中，儿童（7 至 15 岁）检测到两个视觉场景之间的差异。实验 1 的结果表明，正常发育的儿童（n = 16）比物体更快地检测到人脸的变化，而 ASD 儿童（n = 16）在检测人脸和物体的变化时速度相同。这些结果在实验 2 中得到了复制（n = 16 名 ASD 儿童和 22 名正常发育的儿童），实验 2 不要求识别面孔的技能。结果表明，ASD 儿童对面孔没有注意力偏向，这可能导致他们的社交定向异常。
