Dollion Nicolas, Grandgeorge Marine, Saint-Amour Dave, Hosein Poitras Loewen Anthony, François Nathe, Fontaine Nathalie M G, Champagne Noël, Plusquellec Pierrich
Univ Rennes, Normandie Univ., CNRS, EthoS (Éthologie Animale et Humaine) - UMR 6552, Rennes, France.
Laboratoire d'Observation et d'Éthologie Humaine du Québec, Montréal Mental Health University Institute, Centre Intégré Universitaire de Santé et de Services Sociaux de l'Est-de-l'Île-de-Montréal (CIUSSS Est), Montréal, QC, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2022 May 20;13:869452. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.869452. eCollection 2022.
Processing and recognizing facial expressions are key factors in human social interaction. Past research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present difficulties to decode facial expressions. Those difficulties are notably attributed to altered strategies in the visual scanning of expressive faces. Numerous studies have demonstrated the multiple benefits of exposure to pet dogs and service dogs on the interaction skills and psychosocial development of children with ASD. However, no study has investigated if those benefits also extend to the processing of facial expressions. The aim of this study was to investigate if having a service dog had an influence on facial expression processing skills of children with ASD. Two groups of 15 children with ASD, with and without a service dog, were compared using a facial expression recognition computer task while their ocular movements were measured using an eye-tracker. While the two groups did not differ in their accuracy and reaction time, results highlighted that children with ASD owning a service dog directed less attention toward areas that were not relevant to facial expression processing. They also displayed a more differentiated scanning of relevant facial features according to the displayed emotion (i.e., they spent more time on the mouth for joy than for anger, and vice versa for the eyes area). Results from the present study suggest that having a service dog and interacting with it on a daily basis may promote the development of specific visual exploration strategies for the processing of human faces.
面部表情的处理和识别是人类社交互动中的关键因素。过去的研究表明，患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的个体在解码面部表情方面存在困难。这些困难尤其归因于在对富有表情的面孔进行视觉扫描时策略的改变。大量研究表明，接触宠物狗和服务犬对自闭症谱系障碍儿童的互动技能和心理社会发展有诸多益处。然而，尚无研究调查这些益处是否也延伸至面部表情的处理。本研究的目的是调查拥有一只服务犬是否会对自闭症谱系障碍儿童的面部表情处理技能产生影响。两组各15名患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童，一组有服务犬，另一组没有，在进行面部表情识别计算机任务时进行比较，同时使用眼动仪测量他们的眼球运动。虽然两组在准确性和反应时间上没有差异，但结果表明，拥有服务犬的自闭症谱系障碍儿童对与面部表情处理无关的区域关注较少。他们还根据所显示的情绪对面部相关特征进行了更具差异性的扫描（即，他们在看到喜悦表情时在嘴巴部位停留的时间比看到愤怒表情时更长，而在眼睛部位则相反）。本研究结果表明，拥有一只服务犬并每天与之互动可能会促进处理人脸的特定视觉探索策略的发展。
