Dwyer Patrick, Sillas Andre, Prieto Melanie, Camp Emily, Nordahl Christine Wu, Rivera Susan M
Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, Davis, California, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, California, USA.
Autism Res. 2024 Aug;17(8):1677-1695. doi: 10.1002/aur.3174. Epub 2024 Jun 5.
The autistic-developed monotropism account suggests that atypical, domain-general attentional hyper-focus on interests is a central aspect of autism, but domain-general attention differences in autism can manifest differently. Prior research suggests autistic children are often slow to disengage attention from stimuli-a pattern often called "sticky attention"-and that they can show reduced novelty preference. These attentional patterns could influence sensory experiences and learning. We used eye-tracking to investigate novelty preference and "sticky attention" in young autistic children; we also examined whether attentional patterns were related to cognitive abilities and caregiver-reported sensory responsiveness. A total of 46 autistic and 28 nonautistic participants, aged between 2 and 4 years, provided usable data. We found no evidence that autistic children exhibited greater "sticky attention" than nonautistics, but "sticky attention" in autism was associated with more caregiver-reported sensory hyper-responsiveness, seeking/interests, and enhanced perception. Autistic children also nonsignificantly trended toward exhibiting reduced novelty preference. Unexpectedly, the time-course of this trending novelty preference difference implied it was not driven by reduced orienting to novelty, but increased returning to already-familiarized stimuli: what we call "springy attention." Exploratory analyses of data from the attentional disengagement task suggest autistic participants may have exhibited greater "springy attention," though further research with paradigms optimized for measuring this construct should confirm this. Importantly, "springy attention" was robustly related to reduced cognitive abilities and greater caregiver-reported hypo-responsiveness. Thus, this study illuminates two distinct domain-general attentional patterns, each with distinct correlates in young autistic children, which could have important implications for understanding autistic children's learning, development, and experiences.
自闭症发展的单一化理论认为，对兴趣的非典型、领域通用的注意力过度集中是自闭症的一个核心方面，但自闭症中领域通用的注意力差异可能表现得有所不同。先前的研究表明，自闭症儿童往往难以将注意力从刺激上转移——这种模式通常被称为“注意力黏滞”——而且他们可能表现出对新奇事物的偏好降低。这些注意力模式可能会影响感官体验和学习。我们使用眼动追踪技术来研究自闭症幼儿的新奇偏好和“注意力黏滞”；我们还研究了注意力模式是否与认知能力以及照顾者报告的感官反应性有关。共有46名自闭症儿童和28名非自闭症儿童参与，年龄在2至4岁之间，提供了可用数据。我们没有发现证据表明自闭症儿童比非自闭症儿童表现出更强烈的“注意力黏滞”，但自闭症中的“注意力黏滞”与照顾者报告的更多感官高反应性、寻求/兴趣和增强的感知有关。自闭症儿童在表现出对新奇事物的偏好降低方面也有不显著的趋势。出乎意料的是，这种新奇偏好差异的时间进程表明，它不是由对新奇事物的定向减少驱动的，而是由对已经熟悉的刺激的返回增加驱动的：我们称之为“弹性注意力”。对注意力脱离任务数据的探索性分析表明，自闭症参与者可能表现出更大的“弹性注意力”，不过使用针对测量这一结构进行优化的范式进行进一步研究应该可以证实这一点。重要的是，“弹性注意力”与认知能力降低和照顾者报告的更多低反应性密切相关。因此，本研究揭示了两种不同的领域通用注意力模式，每种模式在自闭症幼儿中都有不同的关联，这可能对理解自闭症儿童的学习、发展和体验具有重要意义。
