Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders Perceive The Objects' Characteristics And Inter-object Relations From An Eye-tracking Study

Autism spectrum disorders(ASD)are referred to as pervasive developmental disorders(PDD),characterized by deficits in social reciprocity and communication ability,and by unusual restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviors,interests and activities(DSM-5).Perceptual abnormalities are a common show symptoms of ASD,and may be widely affects all aspects of their cognitive function.Perception is very important for receiving information from the outsides,to explore the characteristics and advantages of the perception with ASD,which will provides efficient and scientific education and rehabilitation guidance.This study,by using the eye-tracking technique to explore the Children with ASD's perception features about the Objects' Characteristics and Inter-object Relations.Subjects are 4-6 years old children with ASD and typically children respectively,by using the priming effect paradigm.By watching picture materials,color(Red,Yellow,Purple)and shape(outline of the object)are the characteristics of the objects,Inter-object Relations is an animal with its typical food or predator-prey relationships(example: a monkey and a banana),and this article involves three experiments.Experiment 1,the color or shape features as the stimulus,exploring in the absence of a learning rule if children with ASD and typically children show the priming effect.If they are perceived the relationship between before and after stimulating images? Results 1:children with ASD showed no priming effect,however,typically children showed Significant priming effect.To analyze the target features on the interest area gaze data,two groups showed significant difference,children with ASD showed an atypical mode of perception: the TFF appeared on the cross-effect,but the FD and the FC were significantly lower than typically children.Experiment 2 add the rule learning phase based on the experiment 1,to explore whether the rule learning phase can change the perception process.Results 2: children with ASD showed the priming effect only under the condition of the color on the FD,other conditions didn't show the priming effect,typically children showed the priming effect on all indicators,and on color priming condition improved significantly.Perceptual characteristics,the TFF cross-effect disappeared,ASD on the TFF is shorter than typically children,the FD and the FC were significantly lower than typically children.The first two experiments were investigated the connection of the characteristics within the object(close),the experiment 3 further explore the perception of the Inter-object Relations which is between objects(long distance).Experimental results 3: children with ASD did not aware of the Inter-object Relations,typically children successful perceived the Inter-object Relations and the degree is greater than the object characteristics,they showed differ trend.Results of this study suggest that children with ASD did show the defect compared with typically children when perceiving Relations within objects' characteristics and Inter-objects.Children with ASD showed an atypical mode of perception,this may be a potent explanation of the social communication disorders,this atypical mode of perception may lead to a failure on the further information processing,it provides a good supporting evidence to understand the social communication disorders with ASD.