Avoidance Of Eye Contact In Autistic Children:Fear Or Lack Of Motivation

Avoidance of eye contact is one of the significant social defects in autistic persons,which is one of the criteria of autism diagnosis.Over the years,the discussion of the mechanism has been a hot spot.Some researchers based on the angle of innate cognitive defect proposed fast-track modulator model and communicative intention detector model to explain it,some stood in the angle of acquired emotion and motivation proposed gaze aversion hypothesis and social motivation hypothesis to interpret it.In this study,children with autism spectrum disorders are the subjects.Standing in the perspective of acquired emotion and motivation,we use two experiments to explore the reason of why autistic children would avoid of eye contact,because of fear or lack of motivation.Experiment 1:using a 2(type of subjects:autism vs.typically developing)×2(gaze direction:direct gaze vs.averted gaze)mixed design,selecting static pictures of the eye region,asking the subjects to watch the pictures carefully and than play a recognition task(2:1).The correct rate of the recognition task and the galvanic skin response while watching the pictures are the statistical indexes.The result show that:compared with averted gaze pictures,autistic children had highly arousal when watching direct gaze pictures,and this highly arousal also affect the correct rate of recognition task.Experiment 2:using a 2(type of subjects:autism vs.typically developing)×3(gaze condition:direct gaze vs.averted gaze vs.closed eyes)mixed design,selecting dynamic video of the face,asking subjects to watch the video and answer the questions of the gaze condition.The correct rate of the judge task and the galvanic skin response while watching the video are the statistical indexes.The result show that:the children in two groups both reached higher than 98%in the correct rate of judge task.Compared with the typically developing children,autistic children showed highly arousal in direct gaze videos,and this highly arousal only happened in the direct gaze,which means in the conditions of averted gaze and closed eyes,the physiological arousal is low.The results of the two experiments both support the gaze aversion hypothesis that the avoidance of eye contact in autistic children may be due of they considered direct gaze as"terrorist" stimulus,it is fear caused avoidance.