Department of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, Liaoning, China.
College of Basic Medical Sciences, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning, China.
Autism Res. 2021 May;14(5):897-910. doi: 10.1002/aur.2398. Epub 2020 Sep 22.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience spatial working memory deficits and show different encoding mechanisms from typical developing (TD) peers. To effectively describe the encoding strategies of those with ASD and highlight their characteristics in cognitive processing, we adopted improved change detection tasks and added eye-movement indicators to investigate the chunking function and reference preference of children with and without ASD. The current study included 20 participants with ASD aged 8-16 and 20 TD children matched for age, gender, and intelligence. Experiment 1 used high/low-structured change detection tasks, and eye-movement indexes were recorded as they memorized the locations of the items to investigate spatial chunking strategies. In Experiment 2, changes in eye movement patterns were observed by adding a frame of reference. The results suggested different encoding strategies in ASD and TD individuals. The ASD group showed local processing bias and had difficulty adopting chunking strategies in spatial working memory. Eye-movement analysis suggested that they rarely showed integrated information processing tendency observed in TD children. Moreover, as a compensatory processing, they were more likely to use the frame of reference. In this study, we compared the spatial chunking strategies and reference preference of children with and without ASD, and eye-movement analysis was used to investigate the processing mechanism. These findings are significant for research on cognitive characteristics of ASD and provide a new focus for working memory training in children with ASD. LAY SUMMARY: The current study suggests that children with autism spectrum disorder are poorer at organizing items into chunks in spatial working memory, but rely more on reference frames. If the purpose of location memory is to strengthen the adaptability of children with autism, it should provide them with more clues or references. If it is for the purpose of intervention such as cognitive training, it should guide them to integrate information to improve the basic cognitive processing efficiency. Autism Res 2021, 14: 897-910. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.
个体患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 会出现空间工作记忆缺陷，并表现出与典型发育 (TD) 同龄人不同的编码机制。为了有效地描述 ASD 患者的编码策略，并强调他们在认知加工中的特征，我们采用了改进的变化检测任务，并增加了眼动指标，以研究 ASD 和非 ASD 儿童的组块功能和参照偏好。本研究包括 20 名年龄在 8-16 岁的 ASD 患者和 20 名年龄、性别和智力相匹配的 TD 儿童。实验 1 使用高低结构的变化检测任务，记录眼动指标，以研究空间组块策略，当他们记忆项目的位置时。在实验 2 中，通过添加参考框架来观察眼动模式的变化。结果表明 ASD 和 TD 个体的编码策略不同。ASD 组表现出局部加工偏向，在空间工作记忆中难以采用组块策略。眼动分析表明，他们很少表现出 TD 儿童观察到的综合信息处理倾向。此外，作为一种补偿处理，他们更有可能使用参考框架。在这项研究中，我们比较了 ASD 和非 ASD 儿童的空间组块策略和参照偏好，并使用眼动分析来研究加工机制。这些发现对自闭症认知特征的研究具有重要意义，并为自闭症儿童的工作记忆训练提供了新的焦点。
自闭症研究 2021, 14: 897-910. 自闭症国际研究协会版权所有 2020, Wiley 期刊出版公司。
