Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom; MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Medical School, University of California at San Francisco, United States.
Res Dev Disabil. 2020 Sep;104:103693. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2020.103693. Epub 2020 May 16.
Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is characterised by atypical social behaviours, such as gaze aversion. However, it remains unclear whether, or if so how, these behaviours affect cognitive processing and influence memory. We asked children with FXS (N = 16) and typically developing children (TD; N = 46) to explore naturalistic scenes containing social and non-social salient items unrelated to their task at hand (searching for a simple target object). We also assessed children's memory for target locations. We complemented behavioural responses with eye-tracking data for the subset of participants who managed to comply with calibration and the demands of the experimental testing session (6 children with FXS and 43 TD children). Children with FXS performed well at the experimental task, and showed similar accuracy and speed in locating targets in natural scenes to children of equivalent verbal abilities. They also learned target locations over blocks, but their memory of target locations was not as precise as that of comparison children. In addition, children with FXS initially directed few first looks to salient social items within the scenes, but these looks increased over blocks. Like TD children, children with FXS also dwelled gaze upon social items while recalling target locations from memory. Individual differences in everyday social characteristics also related to gaze and behavioural measures. In conclusion, experimental approaches can highlight cognitive underpinnings of atypical social behaviour in FXS, pinpointing both similarities and differences to TD individuals.
脆性 X 综合征 (FXS) 的特征是异常的社交行为，例如回避目光接触。然而，目前尚不清楚这些行为是否会影响认知加工，以及如何影响记忆。我们要求 FXS 患儿（N=16）和发育正常的儿童（TD；N=46）探索包含社会和非社会显著项目的自然场景，这些项目与他们手头的任务无关（寻找简单的目标物体）。我们还评估了儿童对目标位置的记忆。对于那些设法符合校准和实验测试要求的参与者子集，我们用眼动追踪数据来补充行为反应（6 名 FXS 儿童和 43 名 TD 儿童）。FXS 患儿在实验任务中表现良好，在自然场景中定位目标的准确性和速度与具有同等语言能力的儿童相似。他们也在几个回合中学习目标位置，但他们对目标位置的记忆不如对照组儿童精确。此外，FXS 患儿在最初的几眼扫视中很少关注场景中的显著社会项目，但这些扫视随着回合的增加而增加。与 TD 儿童一样，FXS 患儿在回忆目标位置时也会凝视社交项目。日常社交特征的个体差异也与注视和行为测量有关。总之，实验方法可以突出 FXS 中异常社交行为的认知基础，指出与 TD 个体的相似之处和不同之处。
