Face Recognition Deficits In Autism Spectrum Disorders Are Both Domain Specific And Process Specific

Autism spectrum disorders(ASD), which basic clinical features are social communication disorder, restricted interest or repeat behavior, is a kind of neurological development disorders. Social communication disorder is the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders, which of the typical performance is face recognition disorder. Although dozens of studies have found that face recognition is impaired in people with autism spectrum disorders, two fundamental question remains: Is the deficit ‘‘domain specific’’ for human faces, or is it found more generally for non-face stimuli? Is this deficit for face memory in particular, or does it extend to perceptual discrimination of faces as well?This dissertation recruited ASD children and typically developing children aged from three to eight years, using eye tracking technology and traditional correct rate combination of methods, to survey the features of face recognition both on face memory and face perception tasks, further to explore the scope and nature of face recognition deficits in autism.Experiment 1 involved in face of the whole structure of early cognitive, attempts to explore the eye movement characteristic of children with ASD on face recognition perception stage. Experiment 2 asked participant to remember faces and identify targets, further to explore the eye movement characteristic of ASD children on face recognition memory stage. On the basis of experiment two, experiment 3 aimed to explore the plasticity of ASD children face recognition ability and whether memory training is helpful to improve the face recognition ability of ASD children.The results are as follow:(1) it didn’t appear obvious deficits ASD children in face perception, but such deficits in face memory recognition obviously, demonstrating process specificity,(2) the face memory deficits significantly impaired in face than non-face stimuli, demonstrating that the face deficit in ASD is domain specific,(3) the face memory deficits in high memory load cases are more serious than low memory load task,(4) memory training had good effect to improve the processing speed and processing depth of ASD child face recognition. Therefore, face recognition deficits in ASD are both domain specific and process specific.