Eye-Tracking Of Attentional Disengagement Characteristics Of Children With Autism In Social Orienting

Attentional disengagement refers to the departure of individual attention from the current attentional focus.Impaired attentional disengagement first appears in the first year of life of individuals with autism.Meanwhile,impaired attentional disengagement is associated with subsequent social disorders and behavioral problems.However,it remains to be seen whether attentional disengagement is impaired in children with autism as they grow into childhood.Existing studies on attentional disengagement in children with autism tend to be repetitive and lack attention to the characteristics of stimuli,especially social stimuli.In this study,the gap-overlap paradigm was adopted to focus on the effects of object category,character’s expression and situation type on attentional disengagement of children with autism.Meanwhile,the ecological validity of stimulus materials was gradually improved in four experiments,so as to understand the characteristics of attentional disengagement of children with autism under different social cues systematically.In experiment 1,we explored the basic characterization of attentional disengagement in children with autism in social orienting and verified the research paradigm.Then,we selected 20 autistic children and 20 typical children.The results showed that there was no significant difference in saccade reaction time and disengagement effect between autistic children and typical children.Moreover,the gap task and the overlap task in the gap-overlap paradigm can reflect the disengagement process of individual’s attention effectively.In experiment 2,we explored the influence of object category on attentional disengagement of children with autism in social orienting.Then,we selected 19 autistic children and 19 typical children whose physical and mental ages were matched.The results showed that autistic children disengaged from human faces significantly slower than typical children(p=.022).Children with autism disengaged human faces more slowly than animal faces(p=.029).In experiment 3,we explored the influence of character’s expression on attentional disengagement of children with autism in social orienting.Then,we selected 18 autistic children and 18 typical children whose physical and mental ages were matched.The results showed that autistic children disengaged disgust expressions significantly slower than happy expressions(p=.040).In experiment 4,we explored the influence of situation type on attentional disengagement of children with autism in social orienting.Then,we selected 23 autistic children and 23 typical children whose physical and mental ages were matched.The results showed that the disengagement of autistic children from the positive situation was significantly slower than that of typical children(p=.010).At the same time,in the positive situation,the disengagement of autistic children from the four-person positive condition was significantly slower than that in the two-person(p=.041)and three-person condition(p=.003).In conclusion,the following conclusions are drawn: 1.Children with autism have basic attentional disengagement ability;2.Attentional disengagement delay in social orienting in children with autism is affected by the characteristics of social stimuli;3.Children with autism are slower to disengage human faces,which may be due to their abnormal processing methods;4.Both autistic children and typical children showe slower disengagement of disgust expression;5.Children with autism are slower to disengage from positive situations,and there may be a threshold for the influence of the number of social contacts on disengagement.This study puts forward specific educational suggestions from three aspects: enriching the stimulus materials and practice methods of attention training for children with autism,improving the perception and processing ability of faces of social objects,and enhancing the emotional perception,understanding and imitation of social situations for children with autism.