Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Microsoft Research, Herzliya, Israel.
J Med Internet Res. 2021 Jul 6;23(7):e23829. doi: 10.2196/23829.
Although autism is often characterized in literature by the presence of repetitive behavior, in structured decision tasks, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been found to examine more options in a given time period than controls.
We aimed to examine whether this investigative tendency emerges in information searches conducted via the internet.
In total, 1746 search engine users stated that they had ASD in 2019. This group's naturally occurring responses following 1491 unique general queries and 78 image queries were compared to those of all other users of the search engine. The main dependent measure was scrolled distance, which denoted the extent to which additional results were scanned beyond the initial results presented on-screen. Additionally, we examined the number of clicks on search results as an indicator of the degree of search outcome exploitation and assessed whether there was a trade-off between increased search range and the time invested in viewing initial search results.
After issuing general queries, individuals with self-stated ASD scanned more results than controls. The scrolled distance in the results page of general queries was 45% larger for the group of individuals with ASD (P<.001; d=0.45). The group of individuals with ASD also made the first scroll faster than the controls (P<.001; d=0.51). The differences in scrolled distance were larger for popular queries. No group differences in scrolled distance emerged for image queries, suggesting that visual load impeded the investigative behavior of individuals with ASD. No differences emerged in the number of clicks on search results.
Individuals who self-stated that they had ASD scrutinized more general search results and fewer image search results than the controls. Thus, our results at least partially support the notion that individuals with ASD exhibit investigative behaviors and suggest that textual searches are an important context for expressing such tendencies.
尽管文献中常将自闭症的特征描述为存在重复行为，但在结构化决策任务中，与对照组相比，自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者在给定时间段内会检查更多的选项。
我们旨在研究这种探索倾向是否会出现在通过互联网进行的信息搜索中。
2019 年，共有 1746 名搜索引擎用户表示他们患有 ASD。将该组在 1491 个独特的一般查询和 78 个图像查询后的自然反应与搜索引擎的所有其他用户进行比较。主要的因变量是滚动距离，表示超出屏幕上呈现的初始结果之外扫描更多结果的程度。此外，我们还检查了点击搜索结果的次数，以作为搜索结果利用程度的指标，并评估了在增加搜索范围和投入查看初始搜索结果的时间之间是否存在权衡。
在发出一般查询后，自我报告的 ASD 个体比对照组扫描了更多的结果。在 ASD 个体组中，一般查询结果页面上的滚动距离比对照组大 45%（P<.001；d=0.45）。ASD 个体组的第一次滚动也比对照组快（P<.001；d=0.51）。在热门查询中，滚动距离的差异更大。对于图像查询，没有出现组间滚动距离的差异，这表明视觉负荷阻碍了 ASD 个体的探索行为。在搜索结果的点击次数上没有出现差异。
自我报告患有 ASD 的个体比对照组更仔细地检查一般搜索结果，而较少检查图像搜索结果。因此，我们的结果至少部分支持 ASD 个体表现出探索行为的观点，并表明文本搜索是表达这种倾向的重要背景。
