Study on the characteristics of gaze following eye movements in children with autism spectrum disorders under different cues
10.3760/cma.j.cn371468-20230403-00154
- VernacularTitle:不同线索条件下孤独症谱系障碍儿童注视跟随眼动特征研究
- Author:
Yaru ZHANG
1
;
Zhi SHAO
;
Guang YANG
;
Shuai PENG
Author Information
1. 重庆市第九人民医院重庆市儿童孤独症康复治疗中心，重庆 400700
- Keywords:
Autism spectrum disorder;
Eye-tracking technology;
Gaze following;
Social attention
- From:
Chinese Journal of Behavioral Medicine and Brain Science
2023;32(11):993-998
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
-
Abstract:
Objective:To explore the eye movement characteristics of gaze following in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) guided by three cues: non-sociality (arrow), high level sociality (eye) and low level sociality (head turning).Methods:Total of 23 ASD children with a developmental age of 2-3 years old and 23 typical development (TD) children with a physiological age of 2-3 years old were included from April to October 2022. The children were guided to follow gaze with three types of cues, namely arrow, eye and head turning, and the eye tracking features were collected with the Tobbi Pro X3-120 eye tracker. SPSS 17.0 was used to analyze the data. A generalized linear model was used to analyze the differences of different score (DS), time to first fixation( TFF), first fixation duration(FFD) and total fixation duration (TFD) between the two groups.Results:(1) The interaction of DS between the groups and cue types was significant (χ 2=11.22, P<0.01), the main effect of groups was significant (χ 2=3.95, P<0.05), and the main effect of cue types was significant (χ 2=31.43, P<0.001). Further simple effect analysis showed that under eye contact conditions, the DS of the ASD group was lower than that of the TD group ( P<0.001). There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups under arrow conditions and head turning conditions (both P>0.05). The DS of the ASD group under eye contact conditions was lower than those under arrow and head turning conditions (both P<0.05), and the DS under arrow conditions was lower than that under head turning conditions ( P<0.001). (2)The interaction of TFF between the groups and the cue type was not significant (χ 2=5.53, P>0.05), and the main effect of groups was not significant (χ 2=3.04, P>0.05). The main effect of cue type was not significant (χ 2=3.19, P>0.05). (3)The interaction of FFD between the groups and cue types was not significant (χ 2=0.29, P>0.05), and the main effect of groups was not significant (χ 2=0.66, P>0.05). The main effect of cue types was not significant (χ 2=3.93, P>0.05). (4)The interaction of TFD between the groups and cue types was not significant (χ 2=2.33, P>0.05). The main effect of groups was significant (χ 2=18.35, P<0.001), and the TFD of the ASD group (1.30 (0.91, 1.58)s) was lower than that of the TD group (1.59(1.31, 1.72)s). The main effect of cue types was significant (χ 2=32.22, P<0.001), and the TFD under arrow condition (1.18 (0.85, 1.40)s) was lower than that under eye contact condition (1.61 (1.29, 1.73)s) and head turning condition (1.62 (1.18, 1.74)s) ( P<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in TFD under eye contact and head turning conditions (both P>0.05). Conclusion:Under the guidance of non-social and low-level social stimuli, children with ASD exhibit gaze following abilities comparable to TD children when communication development is age matched. Under the guidance of high-level social stimuli, children with ASD have poorer gaze following ability, manifested as lower accuracy in responding to cues. The level of social information in cues is an important factor affecting the gaze following ability of children with ASD.
