Social Attention Deficits in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Task Dependence of Objects vs. Faces Observation Bias

Abstract

Social attention deficits represent a central impairment of patients suffering from autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the nature of such deficits remains controversial. We compared visual attention regarding social (faces) vs. non-social stimuli (objects), in an ecological diagnostic context, in 46 children and adolescents divided in two groups: ASD (N = 23) and typical neurodevelopment (TD) (N = 23), matched for chronological age and intellectual performance. Eye-tracking measures of visual scanning, while exploring and describing scenes from three different tasks from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), were analyzed: “Description of a Picture,” “Cartoons,” and “Telling a Story from a Book.” Our analyses revealed a three-way interaction between Group, Task, and Social vs. Object Stimuli. We found a striking main effect of group and a task dependence of attentional allocation: while the TD attended first and longer to faces, ASD participants became similar to TD when they were asked to look at pictures while telling a story. Our results suggest that social attention allocation is task dependent, raising the question whether spontaneous attention deficits can be rescued by guiding goal-directed actions.

Emotion Facial Processing in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study of the Impact of Service Dogs

“…Additional elements may have contributed to this ceiling effect such as the task participants had to perform along with the procedure and type of stimuli used (i.e., dynamic prototypical facial expression displayed by avatars, with long exposure, morphed expression with maximal intensity expressivity), which may have facilitated the recognition of facial expressions for children with ASD in the present study. Previous studies have highlighted the impact of those type elements [i.e., type of the task, nature of the stimuli (e.g., static vs dynamic), intensity of expressions] on facial expression processing in individuals with ASD ( Speer et al, 2007 ; Guillon et al, 2014 ; Mouga et al, 2021 ; Nagy et al, 2021 ). Future studies on similar issues should carefully consider those elements in order to produce enough variation to optimize the evaluation of an effect, for example by increasing the presentation speed ( Matsumoto and Hwang, 2011 ).…”

Social attention in anorexia nervosa and autism spectrum disorder: Role of social motivation

“…Indeed, attention to faces has been shown to be task dependent in individuals with autism. Mouga et al (2021) demonstrated that attention allocation in people with ASD became normalised when they had to narrate what was happening in a story book, as opposed to a simple description of a picture.…”

A Multidisciplinary Telerehabilitation Approach for Supporting Social Interaction in Autism Spectrum Disorder Families: An Italian Digital Platform in Response to COVID-19

“…Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an early-onset neurodevelopmental condition characterized by significant impairments in social interaction and communication, restricted interests, and repetitive and stereotyped behaviors [ 1 ]. Although the complexity of this condition involves several abilities and learning impairments, a social interaction deficit is considered the core symptom for its impact on adaptation to surrounding environments across the lifespan of an individual and for its cascading effects on all other neurodevelopmental domains [ 2 , 3 ]. It is now well established from a variety of studies that parents or caregivers of ASD children have an increasing risk of high stress levels and psychosocial problems [ 4 , 5 ], and that the severity of ASD symptoms is one of the most important factors affecting the caregiver burden in this population [ 6 ].…”