Chouinard Philippe A, Royals Kayla A, Landry Oriane, Sperandio Irene
Department of Psychology and Counselling, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2018 Dec 4;9:2452. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02452. eCollection 2018.
Earlier studies demonstrate reduced illusion strength in the Shepard illusion in adults and adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and in typically developing (TD) adults with high levels of autistic traits. We measured the strength of the Shepard illusion in ASD and TD children and tested if ten different eye-tracking measurements could predict group differences in illusion strength. The ASD children demonstrated reduced illusion strength relative to the TD group. Despite this, there were no mean differences on any of the eye-tracking measurements between groups. Even though none of the eye-tracking measurements revealed mean differences between the two groups, the degree to which spatial attention was directed toward the standard stimulus, as indexed by the number of saccades within and toward this stimulus, predicted the strength of the illusion in the overall sample. Furthermore, this active scanning of the standard stimulus was found to enhance illusion strength more strongly in the ASD than the TD group. Together, we conclude that scan patterns and the degree to which participants are able to shift between different locations in a visual scene did not account for group differences in illusion strength. Thus, the reduced strength of the Shepard illusion in ASD does not appear to be driven by how attention shifts or is spatially allocated. Rather, differences may relate instead to perceptual mechanisms that integrate visual information. Strategies that may aid ASD individuals to see this illusion more strongly could have them make even more eye movements within and between the stimuli presented in the illusion display.
早期研究表明，患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的成年人和青少年以及具有高自闭症特征的发育正常（TD）成年人在谢泼德错觉中的错觉强度降低。我们测量了ASD儿童和TD儿童的谢泼德错觉强度，并测试了十种不同的眼动追踪测量方法是否可以预测错觉强度的组间差异。与TD组相比，ASD儿童的错觉强度降低。尽管如此，两组在任何眼动追踪测量上均无均值差异。即使没有任何眼动追踪测量显示两组之间存在均值差异，但以朝向标准刺激的扫视次数为指标，空间注意力指向标准刺激的程度预测了整个样本中的错觉强度。此外，发现对标准刺激的这种主动扫描在ASD组中比对TD组更能增强错觉强度。总之，我们得出结论，扫描模式以及参与者在视觉场景中不同位置之间切换的能力并不能解释错觉强度的组间差异。因此，ASD中谢泼德错觉强度的降低似乎不是由注意力转移或空间分配方式驱动的。相反，差异可能与整合视觉信息的感知机制有关。可以帮助ASD个体更强烈地看到这种错觉的策略可能会让他们在错觉展示中呈现的刺激内部和之间进行更多的眼动。
