Department of Psychology, University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Andalusia, Spain.
Maimonides Biomedical Research Institute of Cordoba (IMIBIC), Cordoba, Andalusia, Spain.
PLoS One. 2021 Jun 4;16(6):e0252795. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252795. eCollection 2021.
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are associated to social attention (SA) impairments. A gaze bias to non-social objects over faces has been proposed as an early marker of ASD. This bias may be related to the concomitant circumscribed interests (CI), which question the role of competing objects in this atypical visual behavior. The aim of this study was to compare visual attention patterns to social and non-social images in young children with ASD and matched typical controls (N = 36; age range 41-73 months) assessing the role of emotion in facial stimuli and the type of competing object. A paired preference task was designed pairing happy, angry, and neutral faces with two types of objects (related or not related to autism CI). Eye tracking data were collected, and three indexes were considered as dependent variables: prioritization (attentional orientation), preference, and duration (sustained attention). Results showed that both groups had similar visual pattern to faces (prioritization, more attention and longer visits to faces paired with objects non-related to their CI); however, the ASD group attended to faces significantly less than controls. Children with ASD showed an emotional bias (late orientation to angry faces and typical preference for happy faces). Finally, objects related to their CI captured attention in both groups, significantly reducing SA in children with ASD. Atypical SA is present in young children with ASD regardless the competing non-social object. Identifying strengths and difficulties in SA in this population may have substantial repercussion for early diagnosis, intervention, and ultimately prognosis.
自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 与社会注意力 (SA) 损伤有关。有人提出，对非社交对象的凝视偏见是 ASD 的早期标志物。这种偏见可能与同时存在的受限兴趣 (CI) 有关，这质疑了竞争对象在这种非典型视觉行为中的作用。本研究的目的是比较自闭症儿童和匹配的典型对照组（N = 36；年龄范围为 41-73 个月）对社交和非社交图像的视觉注意力模式，评估情绪在面部刺激中的作用以及竞争对象的类型。设计了一个配对偏好任务，将快乐、愤怒和中性面孔与两种类型的对象（与自闭症 CI 相关或不相关）配对。收集眼动追踪数据，并考虑了三个指标作为因变量：优先化（注意力取向）、偏好和持续时间（持续注意力）。结果表明，两组对面孔的视觉模式相似（优先化，对与 CI 不相关的对象配对的面孔给予更多的关注和更长的访问时间）；然而，ASD 组对面孔的关注明显少于对照组。ASD 儿童表现出情绪偏见（对愤怒面孔的后期定向和对快乐面孔的典型偏好）。最后，与他们的 CI 相关的物体在两组中都吸引了注意力，这显著减少了 ASD 儿童的 SA。无论竞争的非社交对象如何，ASD 幼儿都存在异常的 SA。在该人群中识别 SA 的优势和困难可能对早期诊断、干预和最终预后产生重大影响。
