Autism Research Group, Department of Psychology, City, University of London, London, UK.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UC Davis MIND Institute, Sacramento, California, USA.
Autism Res. 2020 Nov;13(11):1929-1946. doi: 10.1002/aur.2368. Epub 2020 Aug 30.
In the domain of memory, autism is characterized by difficulties in explicitly remembering the specific order of stimuli, whereas implicit serial order memory appears to be preserved. This pattern is of considerable interest because serial order memory is known to play a critical role in children's language development. Currently, however, few paradigms exist that can effectively probe serial order memory across heterogeneous groups of children, including those who are minimally verbal. We present two experiments, involving 39 adults (20 ASD; 19 TD) and 130 children (86 ASD; 44 TD), that address this issue using an eye-tracking paradigm, which simply required participants to "watch out for a bunny" that appeared in repeating sequences of screen locations. The adults in Experiment 1 all had normative IQs, whereas Experiment 2 included children with and without substantial language and intellectual difficulties. In both experiments gaze latencies and anticipatory fixations to the bunny indicated reliable repetition learning effects in the TD but not the ASD groups. Importantly, we were able to acquire reliable data from around half of the children with significant language impairments in Experiment 2, indicating that the paradigm can shed light on important learning processes in this underrepresented group. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of memory in ASD as well as for the utility of eye-tracking technology to probe repetition learning effects in autism. Autism Res 2020, 13: 1929-1946. © 2020 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC. LAY SUMMARY: Remembering the specific order of stimuli plays an important role in language development and is thought to be a source of difficulty for autistic individuals. Research in this area, however, rarely includes autistic participants who are minimally verbal. Here we develop an eye-tracking paradigm that demonstrates serial order learning difficulties across the autism spectrum. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the role of memory difficulties in the varied language profiles across the autism spectrum.
在记忆领域，自闭症的特征是难以明确记住刺激的特定顺序，而内隐顺序记忆似乎得以保留。这种模式很有意义，因为顺序记忆已知在儿童语言发展中起着关键作用。然而，目前几乎没有什么范式可以有效地探测包括语言能力极低的自闭症儿童在内的各种异质儿童的顺序记忆。我们提出了两项实验，共涉及 39 名成年人（20 名自闭症；19 名对照组）和 130 名儿童（86 名自闭症；44 名对照组），使用眼动追踪范式解决了这个问题，该范式仅要求参与者“注意屏幕上重复出现的兔子”。实验 1 中的所有成年人的智商都在正常范围内，而实验 2 则包括有和没有严重语言和智力困难的儿童。在这两个实验中，注视潜伏期和对兔子的预期注视表明，对照组的儿童有可靠的重复学习效应，但自闭症组则没有。重要的是，我们能够在实验 2 中从大约一半有严重语言障碍的儿童那里获得可靠的数据，这表明该范式可以揭示这个代表性不足的群体中重要的学习过程。我们讨论了这些发现对自闭症记忆理论以及眼动追踪技术在自闭症中探测重复学习效应的应用的影响。自闭症研究 2020, 13: 1929-1946. © 2020 自闭症研究协会。自闭症研究由国际自闭症研究协会和威利期刊出版公司出版。 要点总结：记住刺激的特定顺序在语言发展中起着重要作用，被认为是自闭症个体的困难来源。然而，该领域的研究很少包括语言能力极低的自闭症参与者。在这里，我们开发了一种眼动追踪范式，可以在自闭症谱系中证明顺序学习困难。我们讨论了这些发现对我们理解记忆困难在自闭症谱系中不同语言特征中的作用的意义。
