Social attention to activities in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: effects of context and age

Molecular Autism

Matthew S. Goodwin¹  Robert L. Hendren²  Bennett Leventhal²  Caitlin M. Hudac³  Andrew Skalkin⁴  Frederick Shic⁵  Jessica Bradshaw⁶  Geraldine Dawson⁷  Dzmitry A. Kaliukhovich⁸  Nikolay V. Manyakov⁸  Abigail Bangerter⁹  Gahan Pandina⁹  Seth Ness⁹ 

[1] 312E Robinson Hall, Department of Health Sciences, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, 02115, Boston, MA, USA;Benioff Children’s Hospital, University of California, San Francisco, 401 Parnassus Avenue, Langley Porter, 94143-0984, San Francisco, CA, USA;Center for Youth Development and Intervention, University of Alabama, Box 870348, 35487-0348, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA;Datagrok, INC, 1800 JFK Blvd Suite 300 PMB 90078, 19103, Philadelphia, PA, USA;Department of Pediatrics, Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, University of Washington, 6200 NE 74th Street, Ste 110, 98115-8160, Seattle, WA, USA;Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, 1512 Pendleton Street, 29201, Columbia, SC, USA;Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development and Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, 2608 Erwin Road, Suite 30, 27705, Durham, NC, USA;Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Turnhoutseweg 30, 2340, Beerse, Belgium;Janssen Research & Development, LLC, 1125 Trenton-Harbourton Road, 08560, Titusville, NJ, USA;

关键词: Autism spectrum disorder;    Social attention;    Activity monitoring;    Eye tracking;    Biomarkers;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13229-020-00388-5

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundDiminished visual monitoring of faces and activities of others is an early feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is uncertain whether deficits in activity monitoring, identified using a homogeneous set of stimuli, persist throughout the lifespan in ASD, and thus, whether they could serve as a biological indicator (“biomarker”) of ASD. We investigated differences in visual attention during activity monitoring in children and adult participants with autism compared to a control group of participants without autism.MethodsEye movements of participants with autism (n = 122; mean age [SD] = 14.5 [8.0] years) and typically developing (TD) controls (n = 40, age = 16.4 [13.3] years) were recorded while they viewed a series of videos depicting two female actors conversing while interacting with their hands over a shared task. Actors either continuously focused their gaze on each other’s face (mutual gaze) or on the shared activity area (shared focus). Mean percentage looking time was computed for the activity area, actors’ heads, and their bodies.ResultsCompared to TD participants, participants with ASD looked longer at the activity area (mean % looking time: 58.5% vs. 53.8%, p < 0.005) but less at the heads (15.2% vs. 23.7%, p < 0.0001). Additionally, within-group differences in looking time were observed between the mutual gaze and shared focus conditions in both participants without ASD (activity: Δ = − 6.4%, p < 0.004; heads: Δ = + 3.5%, p < 0.02) and participants with ASD (bodies: Δ = + 1.6%, p < 0.002).LimitationsThe TD participants were not as well characterized as the participants with ASD. Inclusion criteria regarding the cognitive ability [intelligence quotient (IQ) > 60] limited the ability to include individuals with substantial intellectual disability.ConclusionsDifferences in attention to faces could constitute a feature discriminative between individuals with and without ASD across the lifespan, whereas between-group differences in looking at activities may shift with development. These findings may have applications in the search for underlying biological indicators specific to ASD.Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02668991.

【 授权许可】

CC BY