Interaction With Social Robots: Improving Gaze Toward Face but Not Necessarily Joint Attention in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Wei Cao¹  Wenxu Song¹  Xinge Li²  Sixiao Zheng³  Ge Zhang⁴  Yanting Wu²  Sailing He¹  Huilin Zhu⁵  Jiajia Chen¹ 

[1] Centre for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, South China Normal University;School of Psychology, South China Normal University;Academy for Engineering and Technology, Fudan University;Caihongqiao Children Rehabilitation and Service Center of Panyu District;Child Development and Behavior Center, Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University;KTH Royal Institute of Technology

关键词: autism spectrum disorder;    social robot;    joint attention;    longest common subsequence;    eye tracking;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01503

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

It is widely recognized that robot-based interventions for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) hold promise, but the question remains as to whether social humanoid robots could facilitate joint attention performance in children with ASD. In this study, responsive joint attention was measured under two conditions in which different agents, a human and a robot, initiated joint attention via video. The participants were 15 children with ASD (mean age: 4.96 ± 1.10 years) and 15 typically developing (TD) children (mean age: 4.53 ± 0.90 years). In addition to analyses of fixation time and gaze transitions, a longest common subsequence approach (LCS) was employed to compare participants’ eye movements to a predefined logical reference sequence. The fixation of TD toward agent’s face was earlier and longer than children with ASD. Moreover, TD showed a greater number of gaze transitions between agent’s face and target, and higher LCS scores than children with ASD. Both groups showed more interests in the robot’s face, but the robot induced a lower proportion of fixation time on the target. Meanwhile participants showed similar gaze transitions and LCS results in both conditions, suggesting that they could follow the logic of the joint attention task induced by the robot as well as human. We have discussed the implications for the effects and applications of social humanoid robots in joint attention interventions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY