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Ronconi L, Cantiani C, Riva V, Franchin L, Bettoni R, Gori S, Bulf H, Valenza E, Facoetti A. Infants' reorienting efficiency depends on parental autistic traits and predicts future socio-communicative behaviors. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:40-49. [PMID: 38696607 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae089] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2023] [Revised: 01/29/2024] [Accepted: 02/21/2024] [Indexed: 05/04/2024] Open
Abstract
Attentional reorienting is dysfunctional not only in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but also in infants who will develop ASD, thus constituting a potential causal factor of future social interaction and communication abilities. Following the research domain criteria framework, we hypothesized that the presence of subclinical autistic traits in parents should lead to atypical infants' attentional reorienting, which in turn should impact on their future socio-communication behavior in toddlerhood. During an attentional cueing task, we measured the saccadic latencies in a large sample (total enrolled n = 89; final sample n = 71) of 8-month-old infants from the general population as a proxy for their stimulus-driven attention. Infants were grouped in a high parental traits (HPT; n = 23) or in a low parental traits (LPT; n = 48) group, according to the degree of autistic traits self-reported by their parents. Infants (n = 33) were then longitudinally followed to test their socio-communicative behaviors at 21 months. Results show a sluggish reorienting system, which was a longitudinal predictor of future socio-communicative skills at 21 months. Our combined transgenerational and longitudinal findings suggest that the early functionality of the stimulus-driven attentional network-redirecting attention from one event to another-could be directly connected to future social and communication development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luca Ronconi
- School of Psychology, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Via Olgettina, 58, 20132 Milan, Italy
- Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Via Olgettina, 60, 20132 Milan, Italy
| | - Chiara Cantiani
- Child Psychopathology Unit, Scientific Institute, IRCCS Eugenio Medea, Via Don Luigi Monza, 20, 23842 Lecco, Italy
| | - Valentina Riva
- Child Psychopathology Unit, Scientific Institute, IRCCS Eugenio Medea, Via Don Luigi Monza, 20, 23842 Lecco, Italy
| | - Laura Franchin
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Corso Bettini, 84, 38068 Rovereto, Italy
| | - Roberta Bettoni
- Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1, 20126 Milano, Italy
| | - Simone Gori
- Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, Piazzale Sant'Agostino, 2, 24129 Bergamo, Italy
| | - Herman Bulf
- Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1, 20126 Milano, Italy
| | - Eloisa Valenza
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Via Venezia 8, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Andrea Facoetti
- Developmental and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, Department of General Psychology, Via Venezia 8, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
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Ambarchi Z, Boulton KA, Thapa R, Arciuli J, DeMayo MM, Hickie IB, Thomas EE, Guastella AJ. Social and joint attention during shared book reading in young autistic children: a potential marker for social development. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2024. [PMID: 38659350 DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.13993] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/16/2024] [Indexed: 04/26/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Atypical patterns of social engagement and joint attention behaviors are diagnostic criteria for people with autism spectrum disorder. Experimental tasks using eye-tracking methodologies have, however, shown inconsistent results. The development of tasks with greater ecological validity and relevance for developmentally appropriate social milestones has been identified as important for the field. METHODS We developed a novel, dynamic eye-tracking task emulating a shared book reading (SBR) scenario. Four SBR videos of an adult reader engaging with the viewer while reading a children's picture book and including sequenced bids for joint attention were developed. Participants included 90 children (N = 56 autistic children, N = 34 neurotypical children; aged 3-12). Social attention was also measured in a live free play task between participants and an experimenter. RESULTS Compared to neurotypical children, autistic children displayed reduced attention to socially salient stimuli including the reader's face and picture book across SBR videos and during joint attention bids specifically. In contrast, they showed increased attention to nonsalient background stimuli compared to their neurotypical peers. These attention patterns in autistic children were associated with reduced verbal and nonverbal cognitive skills and increased symptoms associated with autism. Interestingly, positive correlations in the frequency of eye gaze between SBR and free play suggested a potential predictive value for social attention in live social interactions. CONCLUSIONS Findings highlight the utility of SBR eye-tracking tasks in understanding underlying divergences in social engagement and joint attention between autistic and neurotypical children. This commonly practiced early childhood activity may provide insights into the relationship between social engagement and learning to reveal how such attentional patterns might influence broader developmental and educational outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zahava Ambarchi
- Clinic for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research (CAN Research), Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Kelsie A Boulton
- Clinic for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research (CAN Research), Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Rinku Thapa
- Clinic for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research (CAN Research), Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Joanne Arciuli
- Caring Futures Institute, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Marilena M DeMayo
- Clinic for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research (CAN Research), Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Ian B Hickie
- Clinic for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research (CAN Research), Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Emma E Thomas
- Clinic for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research (CAN Research), Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Adam J Guastella
- Clinic for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research (CAN Research), Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital Westmead Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, New South Wales, Australia
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Haskins AJ, Mentch J, Van Wicklin C, Choi YB, Robertson CE. Brief Report: Differences in Naturalistic Attention to Real-World Scenes in Adolescents with 16p.11.2 Deletion. J Autism Dev Disord 2024; 54:1078-1087. [PMID: 36512194 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-022-05850-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/23/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
Sensory differences are nearly universal in autism, but their genetic origins are poorly understood. Here, we tested how individuals with an autism-linked genotype, 16p.11.2 deletion ("16p"), attend to visual information in immersive, real-world photospheres. We monitored participants' (N = 44) gaze while they actively explored 360° scenes via headmounted virtual reality. We modeled the visually salient and semantically meaningful information in scenes and quantified the relative bottom-up vs. top-down influences on attentional deployment. We found, when compared to typically developed control (TD) participants, 16p participants' attention was less dominantly predicted by semantically meaningful scene regions, relative to visually salient regions. These results suggest that a reduction in top-down relative to bottom-up attention characterizes how individuals with 16p.11.2 deletions engage with naturalistic visual environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amanda J Haskins
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, 3 Maynard Street, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA.
| | - Jeff Mentch
- Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | | | - Yeo Bi Choi
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, 3 Maynard Street, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA
| | - Caroline E Robertson
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, 3 Maynard Street, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA
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Akin-Bulbul I, Ozdemir S. Imitation Performance in Children with Autism and the Role of Visual Attention in Imitation. J Autism Dev Disord 2023; 53:4604-4617. [PMID: 36085430 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-022-05726-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/18/2022] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
Abstract
In this study, we examined imitation performance, visual attention, and the relationship between imitation and visual attention of children with autism, developmental delay (DD), and typically developing (TD) children. The study findings revealed that children with autism and DD imitated less than TD children in all imitation tasks. Results also showed that children with autism spent less time looking at the model's face and movement area and more time looking at the external area. Lastly, the relationship between imitation and visual attention separated the study groups. The findings of the study provided new evidence that visual attention to movement area in children with autism was positively related to imitation performance in non-meaningful gestures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Isik Akin-Bulbul
- Department of Special Education, Gazi Education Faculty, Gazi University, Teknikokullar, Ankara, Turkey.
| | - Selda Ozdemir
- Department of Special Education, Education Faculty, Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey
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Social attention and social-emotional modulation of attention in Angelman syndrome: an eye-tracking study. Sci Rep 2023; 13:3375. [PMID: 36854878 PMCID: PMC9975183 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-30199-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2022] [Accepted: 02/17/2023] [Indexed: 03/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Individuals with Angelman syndrome (AS) present with severe intellectual disability alongside a social phenotype characterised by social communication difficulties and an increased drive for social engagement. As the social phenotype in this condition is poorly understood, we examined patterns of social attention and social modulation of attention in AS. Twenty-four individuals with AS and twenty-one young children with similar mental age were shown videos featuring unfamiliar actors who performed simple actions across two conditions: a playful condition, in which the actor showed positive facial emotions, and a neutral condition, in which the actor showed a neutral facial expression. During the passive observation of the videos, participants' proportion of time spent watching the two areas of interest (faces and actions) was examined using eye-tracking technology. We found that the playful condition elicited increased proportion of fixations duration to the actor's face compared to the neutral condition similarly across groups. Additionally, the proportion of fixations duration to the action area was similar across groups in the two conditions. However, children with AS looked towards the actor's face for a shorter duration compared to the comparison group across conditions. This pattern of similarities and differences provides novel insight on the complex social phenotype of children with AS.
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Zacharov O, Huster RJ, Kaale A. Working memory in pre-school children with autism spectrum disorder: An eye-tracking study. Front Psychol 2022; 13:922291. [PMID: 36275262 PMCID: PMC9586183 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.922291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2022] [Accepted: 09/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Working memory (WM) was examined in pre-school children with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with typical development using eye-tracking technology. The children were presented with a digital A-not-B task (with a short and a long waiting condition) where they passively viewed animations of a moving train. Moreover, the current study investigated the relationship between non-verbal mental age (NVMA) and the performance on the task. No group differences were found in the average looking durations between the ASD and typically developing (TD) groups on either the short or long waiting conditions. Although the NVMA of the ASD group was lower than that of the TD group there were no correlations between NVMA and task performance in either group. The results suggest that WM in young children with ASD might not be different from that of TD children. However, the results might be due to ceiling effects of the task and thus needs to be further investigated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oleg Zacharov
- Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- *Correspondence: Oleg Zacharov,
| | | | - Anett Kaale
- Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- Norwegian Centre of Expertise for Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Hypersomnias, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
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Shin S, Chung S, Hong S, Elmqvist N. A Scanner Deeply: Predicting Gaze Heatmaps On Visualizations Using Crowdsourced Eye Movement Data. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VISUALIZATION AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS 2022; PP:1-11. [PMID: 36166520 DOI: 10.1109/tvcg.2022.3209472] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Visual perception is a key component of data visualization. Much prior empirical work uses eye movement as a proxy to understand human visual perception. Diverse apparatus and techniques have been proposed to collect eye movements, but there is still no optimal approach. In this paper, we review 30 prior works for collecting eye movements based on three axes: (1) the tracker technology used to measure eye movements; (2) the image stimulus shown to participants; and (3) the collection methodology used to gather the data. Based on this taxonomy, we employ a webcam-based eyetracking approach using task-specific visualizations as the stimulus. The low technology requirement means that virtually anyone can participate, thus enabling us to collect data at large scale using crowdsourcing: approximately 12,000 samples in total. Choosing visualization images as stimulus means that the eye movements will be specific to perceptual tasks associated with visualization. We use these data to propose a SCANNER DEEPLY, a virtual eyetracker model that, given an image of a visualization, generates a gaze heatmap for that image. We employ a computationally efficient, yet powerful convolutional neural network for our model. We compare the results of our work with results from the DVS model and a neural network trained on the Salicon dataset. The analysis of our gaze patterns enables us to understand how users grasp the structure of visualized data. We also make our stimulus dataset of visualization images available as part of this paper's contribution.
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