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Griffin JW, Naples A, Bernier R, Chawarska K, Dawson G, Dziura J, Faja S, Jeste S, Kleinhans N, Sugar C, Webb SJ, Shic F, McPartland JC. Spatiotemporal Eye Movement Dynamics Reveal Altered Face Prioritization in Early Visual Processing Among Autistic Children. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY. COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2024:S2451-9022(24)00252-0. [PMID: 39237004 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.08.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2024] [Revised: 08/19/2024] [Accepted: 08/22/2024] [Indexed: 09/07/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Reduced social attention - looking at faces - is one of the most common manifestations of social difficulty in autism central to social development. Although reduced social attention is well-characterized in autism, qualitative differences in how social attention unfolds across time remains unknown. METHODS We used a computational modeling (i.e., hidden Markov modeling) approach to assess and compare the spatiotemporal dynamics of social attention in a large, well-characterized sample of autistic (n = 280) and neurotypical (n = 120) children (ages 6-11) that completed three social eye-tracking assays across three longitudinal time points (Baseline, 6 weeks, 24 weeks). RESULTS Our analysis supported the existence of two common eye movement patterns that emerged across three ET assays. A focused pattern was characterized by small face regions of interest, which had high probability of capturing fixations early in visual processing. In contrast, an exploratory pattern was characterized by larger face regions of interest, with lower initial probability of fixation, and more non-social regions of interest. In the context of social perception, autistic children showed significantly more exploratory eye movement patterns than neurotypical children across all social perception assays and all three longitudinal time points. Eye movement patterns were associated with clinical features of autism, including adaptive function, face recognition, and autism symptom severity. CONCLUSIONS Decreased likelihood of precisely looking to faces early in social visual processing may be an important feature of autism that was associated with autism-related symptomology and may reflect less visual sensitivity to face information.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Adam Naples
- Yale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine
| | - Raphael Bernier
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of Washington School of Medicine
| | | | | | - James Dziura
- Emergency Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine
| | - Susan Faja
- Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital; Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
| | - Shafali Jeste
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Los Angeles
| | - Natalia Kleinhans
- Department of Radiology, University of Washington School of Medicine; Center On Human Development and Disability, University of Washington
| | - Catherine Sugar
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Los Angeles; Department of Biostatistics, University of California Los Angeles
| | - Sara Jane Webb
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of Washington School of Medicine; Center for Child Health, Behavior, and Development, Seattle Children's Research Institute
| | - Frederick Shic
- Center for Child Health, Behavior, and Development, Seattle Children's Research Institute; Department of General Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine
| | - James C McPartland
- Yale Child Study Center, Yale University School of Medicine; Center for Brain and Mind Heath, Yale University School of Medicine.
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Pandya S, Jain S, Verma J. A comprehensive analysis towards exploring the promises of AI-related approaches in autism research. Comput Biol Med 2024; 168:107801. [PMID: 38064848 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2023.107801] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/26/2023] [Revised: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 11/29/2023] [Indexed: 01/10/2024]
Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that presents challenges in communication, social interaction, repetitive behaviour, and limited interests. Detecting ASD at an early stage is crucial for timely interventions and an improved quality of life. In recent times, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been increasingly used in ASD research. The rise in ASD diagnoses is due to the growing number of ASD cases and the recognition of the importance of early detection, which leads to better symptom management. This study explores the potential of AI in identifying early indicators of autism, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of Good Health and Well-being (Goal 3) and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (Goal 16). The paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art AI-based autism classification by reviewing recent publications from the last decade. It covers various modalities such as Eye gaze, Facial Expression, Motor skill, MRI/fMRI, and EEG, and multi-modal approaches primarily grouped into behavioural and biological markers. The paper presents a timeline spanning from the history of ASD to recent developments in the field of AI. Additionally, the paper provides a category-wise detailed analysis of the AI-based application in ASD with a diagrammatic summarization to convey a holistic summary of different modalities. It also reports on the successes and challenges of applying AI for ASD detection while providing publicly available datasets. The paper paves the way for future scope and directions, providing a complete and systematic overview for researchers in the field of ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shivani Pandya
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 382481, India.
| | - Swati Jain
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 382481, India.
| | - Jaiprakash Verma
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 382481, India.
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Tian L, Ma S, Li Y, Zhao MF, Xu C, Wang C, Zhang X, Gao L. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can improve the fixation of eyes rather than the fixation preference in children with autism spectrum disorder. Front Neurosci 2023; 17:1188648. [PMID: 37547145 PMCID: PMC10400712 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1188648] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2023] [Accepted: 07/03/2023] [Indexed: 08/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been introduced into the intervention of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as a possible new therapeutic option for modifying pathological neuroplasticity. However, the stimulating protocols of rTMS for ASD have not been approved unanimously, which affects the clinical popularization and application of rTMS. In addition, there is little research on the improvement of social processing of autistic children by rTMS. Methods We explored the clinical efficacy of rTMS and improvement of face processing with the protocol of left high-frequency and right low-frequency on bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), with a sample of 45 ASD participants aged 2-18. Results Our results showed that both the score on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) and the fixations on the eyes of the human faces improved by two-session rTMS intervention, except for the percentage of eyes fixation. The mediation analysis indicated the item of "Adaptation to Change" of CARS mediated dominantly the improvement of eye-gaze behavior of ASD participants by rTMS. Conclusion Our study revealed the mechanism of rTMS in improving the eye-gaze behavior of the autism population, deepened the understanding of the function of rTMS in treating autistic social disorders, and provided a reference for combined treatment for ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li Tian
- Tianjin Anding Hospital, Tianjin, China
| | - Shuai Ma
- Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Yin Li
- Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Meng-fei Zhao
- Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Chang Xu
- Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Chen Wang
- Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Xin Zhang
- Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Lei Gao
- Department of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
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Baron A, Harwood V, Kleinman D, Campanelli L, Molski J, Landi N, Irwin J. Where on the face do we look during phonemic restoration: An eye-tracking study. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1005186. [PMID: 37303890 PMCID: PMC10249372 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1005186] [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: 07/28/2022] [Accepted: 04/28/2023] [Indexed: 06/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Face to face communication typically involves audio and visual components to the speech signal. To examine the effect of task demands on gaze patterns in response to a speaking face, adults participated in two eye-tracking experiments with an audiovisual (articulatory information from the mouth was visible) and a pixelated condition (articulatory information was not visible). Further, task demands were manipulated by having listeners respond in a passive (no response) or an active (button press response) context. The active experiment required participants to discriminate between speech stimuli and was designed to mimic environmental situations which require one to use visual information to disambiguate the speaker's message, simulating different listening conditions in real-world settings. Stimuli included a clear exemplar of the syllable /ba/ and a second exemplar in which the formant initial consonant was reduced creating an /a/-like consonant. Consistent with our hypothesis, results revealed that the greatest fixations to the mouth were present in the audiovisual active experiment and visual articulatory information led to a phonemic restoration effect for the /a/ speech token. In the pixelated condition, participants fixated on the eyes, and discrimination of the deviant token within the active experiment was significantly greater than the audiovisual condition. These results suggest that when required to disambiguate changes in speech, adults may look to the mouth for additional cues to support processing when it is available.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alisa Baron
- Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, United States
| | - Vanessa Harwood
- Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, United States
| | | | - Luca Campanelli
- Department of Communicative Disorders, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, United States
| | - Joseph Molski
- Department of Communicative Disorders, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, United States
| | - Nicole Landi
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, United States
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States
| | - Julia Irwin
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, United States
- Department of Psychology, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT, United States
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Zhou R, Xie X, Wang J, Ma B, Hao X. Why do children with autism spectrum disorder have abnormal visual perception? Front Psychiatry 2023; 14:1087122. [PMID: 37255685 PMCID: PMC10225551 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1087122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2022] [Accepted: 03/28/2023] [Indexed: 06/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with severe impairment in social functioning. Visual information processing provides nonverbal cues that support social interactions. ASD children exhibit abnormalities in visual orientation, continuous visual exploration, and visual-spatial perception, causing social dysfunction, and mechanisms underlying these abnormalities remain unclear. Transmission of visual information depends on the retina-lateral geniculate nucleus-visual cortex pathway. In ASD, developmental abnormalities occur in rapid expansion of the visual cortex surface area with constant thickness during early life, causing abnormal transmission of the peak of the visual evoked potential (P100). We hypothesized that abnormal visual perception in ASD are related to the abnormal visual information transmission and abnormal development of visual cortex in early life, what's more, explored the mechanisms of abnormal visual symptoms to provide suggestions for future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rongyi Zhou
- Department of Pediatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Xinyue Xie
- Department of Pediatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Jiaojiao Wang
- Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Henan Institute of Ophthalmology, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Bingxiang Ma
- Department of Pediatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Xin Hao
- Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
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de Belen RA, Pincham H, Hodge A, Silove N, Sowmya A, Bednarz T, Eapen V. Eye-tracking correlates of response to joint attention in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder. BMC Psychiatry 2023; 23:211. [PMID: 36991383 PMCID: PMC10061704 DOI: 10.1186/s12888-023-04585-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2022] [Accepted: 02/02/2023] [Indexed: 03/31/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND A number of differences in joint attention behaviour between children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) individuals have previously been documented. METHOD We use eye-tracking technology to assess response to joint attention (RJA) behaviours in 77 children aged 31 to 73 months. We conducted a repeated-measures analysis of variance to identify differences between groups. In addition, we analysed correlations between eye-tracking and clinical measures using Spearman's correlation. RESULTS The children diagnosed with ASD were less likely to follow gaze compared to TD children. Children with ASD were less accurate at gaze following when only eye gaze information was available, compared to when eye gaze with head movement was observed. Higher accuracy gaze-following profiles were associated with better early cognition and more adaptive behaviours in children with ASD. Less accurate gaze-following profiles were associated with more severe ASD symptomatology. CONCLUSION There are differences in RJA behaviours between ASD and TD preschool children. Several eye-tracking measures of RJA behaviours in preschool children were found to be associated with clinical measures for ASD diagnosis. This study also highlights the construct validity of using eye-tracking measures as potential biomarkers in the assessment and diagnosis of ASD in preschool children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ryan Anthony de Belen
- School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales Australia
| | - Hannah Pincham
- School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales Australia
| | | | - Natalie Silove
- Children’s Hospital Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales Australia
- School of Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales Australia
| | - Arcot Sowmya
- School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales Australia
| | - Tomasz Bednarz
- School of Art & Design, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales Australia
| | - Valsamma Eapen
- School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales Australia
- Academic Unit of Child Psychiatry South West Sydney, Ingham Institute, Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales Australia
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7
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Ni W, Lu H, Wang Q, Song C, Yi L. Vigilance or avoidance: How do autistic traits and social anxiety modulate attention to the eyes? Front Neurosci 2023; 16:1081769. [PMID: 36711128 PMCID: PMC9876610 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.1081769] [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: 10/27/2022] [Accepted: 12/16/2022] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Social anxiety disorder (SAD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are highly overlapping in symptoms and have a high rate of comorbidity, posing challenges in diagnosis and intervention for both disorders. Both disorders are linked to abnormal attention to the eyes, yet how they interactively modulate the attentional process to the eyes remains unclear. Methods In this study, we explored how autistic traits and social anxiety in college students separately and together affected different temporal stages of attention to the eyes. Participants were instructed to view virtual faces for 10 s and make an emotional judgment, while their eye movements were recorded. Results We found that social anxiety and autistic traits affected different temporal stages of eye-looking. Social anxiety only affected the first fixation duration on the eyes, while autistic traits were associated with eye avoidance at several time points in the later stage. More importantly, we found an interactive effect of autistic traits and social anxiety on the initial attention to the eyes: Among people scoring high on autistic traits, social anxiety was related to an early avoidance of the eyes as well as attention maintenance once fixated on the eyes. Discussion Our study suggests the separate and interactive roles of social anxiety and autistic traits in attention to the eyes. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of social attention in both SAD and ASD and highlights the application of psychiatric diagnoses using eye-tracking techniques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wei Ni
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Haoyang Lu
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Qiandong Wang
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China,Education Research Center for Children With ASD, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Ci Song
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Li Yi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China,IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research at PKU, Peking University, Beijing, China,*Correspondence: Li Yi,
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Iwauchi K, Tanaka H, Okazaki K, Matsuda Y, Uratani M, Morimoto T, Nakamura S. Eye-movement analysis on facial expression for identifying children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders. Front Digit Health 2023; 5:952433. [PMID: 36874367 PMCID: PMC9978093 DOI: 10.3389/fdgth.2023.952433] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2022] [Accepted: 01/30/2023] [Indexed: 02/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Experienced psychiatrists identify people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (Sz) through interviews based on diagnostic criteria, their responses, and various neuropsychological tests. To improve the clinical diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders such as ASD and Sz, the discovery of disorder-specific biomarkers and behavioral indicators with sufficient sensitivity is important. In recent years, studies have been conducted using machine learning to make more accurate predictions. Among various indicators, eye movement, which can be easily obtained, has attracted much attention and various studies have been conducted for ASD and Sz. Eye movement specificity during facial expression recognition has been studied extensively in the past, but modeling taking into account differences in specificity among facial expressions has not been conducted. In this paper, we propose a method to detect ASD or Sz from eye movement during the Facial Emotion Identification Test (FEIT) while considering differences in eye movement due to the facial expressions presented. We also confirm that weighting using the differences improves classification accuracy. Our data set sample consisted of 15 adults with ASD and Sz, 16 controls, and 15 children with ASD and 17 controls. Random forest was used to weight each test and classify the participants as control, ASD, or Sz. The most successful approach used heat maps and convolutional neural networks (CNN) for eye retention. This method classified Sz in adults with 64.5% accuracy, ASD in adults with up to 71.0% accuracy, and ASD in children with 66.7% accuracy. Classifying of ASD result was significantly different (p<.05) by the binomial test with chance rate. The results show a 10% and 16.7% improvement in accuracy, respectively, compared to a model that does not take facial expressions into account. In ASD, this indicates that modeling is effective, which weights the output of each image.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kota Iwauchi
- Augmented Human Communication Laboratory, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma, Nara, Japan
| | - Hiroki Tanaka
- Augmented Human Communication Laboratory, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma, Nara, Japan
| | - Kosuke Okazaki
- Department of Psychiatry, Nara Medical University School of Medicine, Kashihara, Nara, Japan
| | - Yasuhiro Matsuda
- Department of Psychiatry, Nara Medical University School of Medicine, Kashihara, Nara, Japan.,Osaka Psychiatric Medical Center, Osaka, Japan
| | - Mitsuhiro Uratani
- Department of Psychiatry, Nara Medical University School of Medicine, Kashihara, Nara, Japan
| | - Tsubasa Morimoto
- Department of Psychiatry, Nara Medical University School of Medicine, Kashihara, Nara, Japan
| | - Satoshi Nakamura
- Augmented Human Communication Laboratory, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma, Nara, Japan
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Zhao Q, Guo Q, Shi Z, Cai Z, Zhang L, Li D, Chen Q, Du J, Wang K, Zhang L. Promoting gaze toward the eyes of emotional faces in individuals with high autistic traits using group cognitive behavioral therapy: An eye-tracking study. J Affect Disord 2022; 306:115-123. [PMID: 35304234 DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2022.03.023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2021] [Revised: 01/05/2022] [Accepted: 03/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Individuals with subclinical autistic traits exhibit a pattern of eye avoidance similar to that of typical autism. Our study aimed to test the efficacy of group cognitive behavioral therapy (G-CBT) in promoting gaze toward the eye area of facial expressions, specifically orienting to emotional faces, in individuals with high autistic traits (high AT). METHODS Twenty-six high AT individuals and 30 low AT individuals participated. High AT individuals were assigned to eight sessions of G-CBT intervention. Eye-tracking measurements were acquired before and after treatment. RESULTS We observed the following: (a) the eye avoidance in high AT individuals was prominent for all facial expressions in relative to low AT individuals; (b) G-CBT primarily improved gaze toward the eyes of happy and fearful faces but not for neutral face expressions in high AT individuals; (c) after 8 sessions of G-CBT, the fixation time on the eyes of emotional faces improved significantly. For happy faces, the fixation time on the eyes of faces was markedly increased in epochs between 500 ms and 1000 ms after the face onset; for fearful faces, the improvement in participants existed between about 1000 ms and 1500 ms after the face appeared. LIMITATION Our results may not be generalized to other patients with ASD. CONCLUSIONS Our findings demonstrate that G-CBT significantly promotes gaze toward the eyes of emotional faces in high AT individuals. These results are encouraging, and suggest that the emotional face processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might stand to benefit from similar psychotherapeutic treatment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qingqing Zhao
- School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China
| | - Qianhui Guo
- School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China
| | - Zhulin Shi
- School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China
| | - Zhu Cai
- School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China
| | - Long Zhang
- Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, The School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province 230032, China
| | - Dandan Li
- School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China
| | - Qiuyu Chen
- School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China
| | - Jinmei Du
- School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China
| | - Kai Wang
- Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, The School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province 230032, China; Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, Hefei 230088, China; Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei 230032, China; Collaborative Innovation Center for Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China.
| | - Lei Zhang
- School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, China.
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Using Video Modeling to Teach Abduction-Prevention Skills to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 2021; 52:3909-3918. [PMID: 34553292 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-021-05241-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/12/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Video modeling was used to teach children with autism spectrum disorder how to respond to taped stranger lure scenarios and in-situ stranger lures. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to assess treatment effects. Measures consisted of reported verbal and motor responses to three abduction scenarios and actual responses to stranger lures planted near the children's therapy program and within the children's communities. Each child displayed increases in appropriate responses to taped abduction scenarios and in-situ stranger lures post-treatment. One year following the intervention 90% of the participants maintained and generalized the skills. This study indicated that children with ASD could learn to respond to taped stranger lure scenarios and correspondingly demonstrate these skills in situ and maintain these skills for at least one year following treatment.
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Ma X, Gu H, Zhao J. Atypical gaze patterns to facial feature areas in autism spectrum disorders reveal age and culture effects: A meta-analysis of eye-tracking studies. Autism Res 2021; 14:2625-2639. [PMID: 34542246 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2607] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2021] [Revised: 08/07/2021] [Accepted: 08/21/2021] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
Children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often present with atypical gaze patterns to others' faces, a finding substantiated throughout the literature. Yet, a quantification of atypical gaze patterns to different facial regions (e.g., eyes versus mouth) in ASD remains controversial. Also few study has investigated how age and culture impacted the pattern of gaze abnormalities in ASD. This research therefore conducted a meta-analysis of eye-tracking studies to evaluate age and culture effect on atypical gaze patterns of face processing in ASD. A total of 75 articles (91 studies) and 4209 individuals (ASD: 2027; controls: 2182) across all age ranges (i.e., childhood through to adulthood) from both Eastern and Western cultures were included in this meta-analysis. Individuals with ASD yielded shorter fixation durations to the eyes than individuals without ASD. Group differences in the time spent fixating on the eyes were not modulated by age, but affected by culture. Effect size in the eastern culture was larger than that in the western culture. In contrast, group differences on time spent looking at the mouth were not significant, but changed with age and modulated by culture. Relative to the neurotypical controls, Western individuals with ASD spent more time looking at the mouth from school age, whereas Eastern individuals with ASD did not gaze longer on mouth until adulthood. These results add to the body of evidence supporting atypical gaze behaviors to eyes in ASD and provide new insights into a potential mouth compensation strategy that develops with age in ASD. LAY SUMMARY: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show atypical gaze patterns when looking at others' faces compared to neurotypical individuals. This paper examines the role of age and culture on pattern of gaze abnormalities in individuals with ASD. Results show that reduction of gaze on eyes in ASD is stable across all ages and cultures, while increase of gaze on mouth emerges as individuals with ASD get older. The findings provide a developmental insight to the gaze patterns on the autism spectrum across culture.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xue'er Ma
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Shaanxi Provincial Key Research Center of Child Mental and Behavioral Health, Xi'an, China
| | - Haixia Gu
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Shaanxi Provincial Key Research Center of Child Mental and Behavioral Health, Xi'an, China
| | - Jingjing Zhao
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Shaanxi Provincial Key Research Center of Child Mental and Behavioral Health, Xi'an, China
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12
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Jyoti V, Gupta S, Lahiri U. Understanding the Role of Objects in Joint Attention Task Framework for Children With Autism. IEEE Trans Cogn Dev Syst 2021. [DOI: 10.1109/tcds.2020.2983333] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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13
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Selvanayagam J, Johnston KD, Wong RK, Schaeffer D, Everling S. Ketamine disrupts gaze patterns during face viewing in the common marmoset. J Neurophysiol 2021; 126:330-339. [PMID: 34133232 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00078.2021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Faces are stimuli of critical importance for primates. The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a promising model for investigations of face processing, as this species possesses oculomotor and face-processing networks resembling those of macaques and humans. Face processing is often disrupted in neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia (SZ), and thus, it is important to recapitulate underlying circuitry dysfunction preclinically. The N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) noncompetitive antagonist ketamine has been used extensively to model the cognitive symptoms of SZ. Here, we investigated the effects of a subanesthetic dose of ketamine on oculomotor behavior in marmosets during face viewing. Four marmosets received systemic ketamine or saline injections while viewing phase-scrambled or intact videos of conspecifics' faces. To evaluate effects of ketamine on scan paths during face viewing, we identified regions of interest in each face video and classified locations of saccade onsets and landing positions within these areas. A preference for the snout over eye regions was observed following ketamine administration. In addition, regions in which saccades landed could be significantly predicted by saccade onset region in the saline but not the ketamine condition. Effects on saccade control were limited to an increase in saccade peak velocity in all conditions and a reduction in saccade amplitudes during viewing of scrambled videos. Thus, ketamine induced a significant disruption of scan paths during viewing of conspecific faces but limited effects on saccade motor control. These findings support the use of ketamine in marmosets for investigating changes in neural circuits underlying social cognition in neuropsychiatric disorders.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Face processing, an important social cognitive ability, is impaired in neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. The highly social common marmoset model presents an opportunity to investigate these impairments. We administered subanesthetic doses of ketamine to marmosets to model the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. We observed a disruption of scan paths during viewing of conspecifics' faces. These findings support the use of ketamine in marmosets as a model for investigating social cognition in neuropsychiatric disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Janahan Selvanayagam
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.,Center for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - Kevin D Johnston
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.,Center for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - Raymond K Wong
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.,Center for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - David Schaeffer
- Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
| | - Stefan Everling
- Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.,Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.,Center for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
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14
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Liu Q, Wang Q, Li X, Gong X, Luo X, Yin T, Liu J, Yi L. Social synchronization during joint attention in children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Res 2021; 14:2120-2130. [PMID: 34105871 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2553] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2020] [Revised: 05/21/2021] [Accepted: 05/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
We explored the social synchronization of gaze-shift behaviors when responding to joint attention in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Forty-one children aged 5 to 8 with ASD and 43 typically developing (TD) children watched a video to complete the response to joint attention (RJA) tasks, during which their gaze data were collected. The synchronization of gaze-shift behaviors between children and the female model in the video was measured with the cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). Ultimately, we discovered that children with ASD had the ability to synchronize their gaze shifts with the female model in the video during RJA tasks. Compared to the TD children, they displayed lower levels of synchronization and longer latency in this synchronized behavior. These findings provide a new avenue to deepen our understanding of the impairments of social interaction in children with ASD. Notably, the analytic method can be further applied to explore the social synchronization of numerous other social interactive behaviors in ASD. LAY SUMMARY: This study explored how autistic children synchronized their gazed shifts with others' gaze cues during joint attention. We found that compared to typical children, autistic children synchronized their gazed shifts less and needed more time to follow others' gaze. These findings provide a new avenue to deepen our understanding of the impairments of social interaction in children with ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qinyi Liu
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Qiandong Wang
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Xue Li
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Xiaoyun Gong
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Xuerong Luo
- Department of Psychiatry, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, National Technology Institute on Mental Disorders, Hunan Key Laboratory of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Mental Health Institute of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China
| | - Tingni Yin
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Jing Liu
- Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China
| | - Li Yi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.,IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research at PKU, Peking University, Beijing, China
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15
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Reimann GE, Walsh C, Csumitta KD, McClure P, Pereira F, Martin A, Ramot M. Gauging facial feature viewing preference as a stable individual trait in autism spectrum disorder. Autism Res 2021; 14:1670-1683. [PMID: 34008916 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2540] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/23/2020] [Revised: 04/15/2021] [Accepted: 04/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
Eye tracking provides insights into social processing deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially in conjunction with dynamic, naturalistic free-viewing stimuli. However, the question remains whether gaze characteristics, such as preference for specific facial features, can be considered a stable individual trait, particularly in those with ASD. If so, how much data are needed for consistent estimations? To address these questions, we assessed the stability and robustness of gaze preference for facial features as incremental amounts of movie data were introduced for analysis. We trained an artificial neural network to create an object-based segmentation of naturalistic movie clips (14 s each, 7410 frames total). Thirty-three high-functioning individuals with ASD and 36 age- and IQ-equated typically developing individuals (age range: 12-30 years) viewed 22 Hollywood movie clips, each depicting a social interaction. As we evaluated combinations of one, three, five, eight, and 11 movie clips, gaze dwell times on core facial features became increasingly stable at within-subject, within-group, and between-group levels. Using a number of movie clips deemed sufficient by our analysis, we found that individuals with ASD displayed significantly less face-centered gaze (centralized on the nose; p < 0.001) but did not significantly differ from typically developing participants in eye or mouth looking times. Our findings validate gaze preference for specific facial features as a stable individual trait and highlight the possibility of misinterpretation with insufficient data. Additionally, we propose the use of a machine learning approach to stimuli segmentation to quickly and flexibly prepare dynamic stimuli for analysis. LAY SUMMARY: Using a data-driven approach to segmenting movie stimuli, we examined varying amounts of data to assess the stability of social gaze in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We found a reduction in social fixations in participants with ASD, driven by decreased attention to the center of the face. Our findings further support the validity of gaze preference for face features as a stable individual trait when sufficient data are used.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabrielle E Reimann
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Catherine Walsh
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Kelsey D Csumitta
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Patrick McClure
- Section on Functional Imaging Methods, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Francisco Pereira
- Section on Functional Imaging Methods, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Alex Martin
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Michal Ramot
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
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16
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Griffin JW, Bauer R, Scherf KS. A quantitative meta-analysis of face recognition deficits in autism: 40 years of research. Psychol Bull 2021; 147:268-292. [PMID: 33104376 PMCID: PMC8961473 DOI: 10.1037/bul0000310] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
The ability to recognize an individual face is essential to human social interaction. Even subtle errors in this process can have huge implications for the way we relate to social partners. Because autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in social interaction, researchers have theorized about the potential role of atypical face identity processing to the symptom profile of ASD for more than 40 years. We conducted an empirical meta-analysis of this large literature to determine whether and to what extent face identity processing is atypical in ASD compared to typically developing (TD) individuals. We also tested the hypotheses that the deficit is selective to face identity recognition, not perception, and that methodological variation across studies moderates the magnitude of the estimated deficit. We identified 112 studies (5,390 participants) that generated 172 effect sizes from both recognition (k = 119) and discrimination (k = 53) paradigms. We used state-of-the-art approaches for assessing the validity and robustness of the analyses. We found comparable and large deficits in ASD for both face identity recognition (Hedge's g = -0.86) and discrimination (Hedge's g = -0.82). This means that the score of an average ASD individual is nearly 1 SD below the average TD individual on tasks assessing both aspects of face identity processing. These deficits generalize across age groups, sex, IQ scores, and task paradigms. These findings suggest that deficits in face identity processing may represent a core deficit in ASD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Russell Bauer
- Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University
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17
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Briot K, Pizano A, Bouvard M, Amestoy A. New Technologies as Promising Tools for Assessing Facial Emotion Expressions Impairments in ASD: A Systematic Review. Front Psychiatry 2021; 12:634756. [PMID: 34025469 PMCID: PMC8131507 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.634756] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/28/2020] [Accepted: 03/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability to recognize and express emotions from facial expressions are essential for successful social interactions. Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) and Facial Emotion Expressions (FEEs), both of which seem to be impaired in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and contribute to socio-communicative difficulties, participate in the diagnostic criteria for ASD. Only a few studies have focused on FEEs processing and the rare behavioral studies of FEEs in ASD have yielded mixed results. Here, we review studies comparing the production of FEEs between participants with ASD and non-ASD control subjects, with a particular focus on the use of automatic facial expression analysis software. A systematic literature search in accordance with the PRISMA statement identified 20 reports published up to August 2020 concerning the use of new technologies to evaluate both spontaneous and voluntary FEEs in participants with ASD. Overall, the results highlight the importance of considering socio-demographic factors and psychiatric co-morbidities which may explain the previous inconsistent findings, particularly regarding quantitative data on spontaneous facial expressions. There is also reported evidence for an inadequacy of FEEs in individuals with ASD in relation to expected emotion, with a lower quality and coordination of facial muscular movements. Spatial and kinematic approaches to characterizing the synchrony, symmetry and complexity of facial muscle movements thus offer clues to identifying and exploring promising new diagnostic targets. These findings have allowed hypothesizing that there may be mismatches between mental representations and the production of FEEs themselves in ASD. Such considerations are in line with the Facial Feedback Hypothesis deficit in ASD as part of the Broken Mirror Theory, with the results suggesting impairments of neural sensory-motor systems involved in processing emotional information and ensuring embodied representations of emotions, which are the basis of human empathy. In conclusion, new technologies are promising tools for evaluating the production of FEEs in individuals with ASD, and controlled studies involving larger samples of patients and where possible confounding factors are considered, should be conducted in order to better understand and counter the difficulties in global emotional processing in ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kellen Briot
- Medical Sciences Department, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.,Pôle Universitaire de Psychiatrie de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent, Centre Hospitalier Charles-Perrens, Bordeaux, France.,Aquitaine Institute for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience (INCIA), UMR 5287, CNRS, Bordeaux, France
| | - Adrien Pizano
- Medical Sciences Department, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.,Pôle Universitaire de Psychiatrie de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent, Centre Hospitalier Charles-Perrens, Bordeaux, France.,Aquitaine Institute for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience (INCIA), UMR 5287, CNRS, Bordeaux, France
| | - Manuel Bouvard
- Medical Sciences Department, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.,Pôle Universitaire de Psychiatrie de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent, Centre Hospitalier Charles-Perrens, Bordeaux, France.,Aquitaine Institute for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience (INCIA), UMR 5287, CNRS, Bordeaux, France
| | - Anouck Amestoy
- Medical Sciences Department, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.,Pôle Universitaire de Psychiatrie de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent, Centre Hospitalier Charles-Perrens, Bordeaux, France.,Aquitaine Institute for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience (INCIA), UMR 5287, CNRS, Bordeaux, France
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18
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Wang Q, Hoi SP, Song C, Li T, Lam CM, Wang Y, Yi L. Circumscribed Interest Modulates Attention to Eyes in Boys With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder. Front Psychiatry 2021; 12:627365. [PMID: 34393839 PMCID: PMC8362852 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.627365] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2020] [Accepted: 06/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit abnormal visual attention, such as diminished attention to eyes and enhanced attention to high-autism-interest objects. We tested whether high-autism-interest objects would modulate the attention to eyes in boys with ASD and typically developing (TD) boys. Twenty-two ASD and 22 TD children were presented simultaneously with human eyes and high/low-autism-interest objects (HAI/LAI) while their eye movements were recorded. We found that visual preference for eyes was influenced by competing objects in children with and without ASD. Specifically, both children with and without ASD showed reduced overall and first looking preference when eyes were paired with HAI objects relative to LAI objects. Children with ASD also showed reduced sustained viewing preference to the eyes after first looking at the eyes and late looking preference to the eyes after first looking at the objects in the HAI condition than the LAI condition, but these effects were absent in the TD group. Our study not only helps us understand some factors that impact attention to eyes, but also has implications for interventions aiming at improving eye contact in children with ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiandong Wang
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
| | - Sio Pan Hoi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Ci Song
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Tianbi Li
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Cheuk Man Lam
- Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China
| | - Yuyin Wang
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Li Yi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
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19
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de Belen RAJ, Bednarz T, Sowmya A, Del Favero D. Computer vision in autism spectrum disorder research: a systematic review of published studies from 2009 to 2019. Transl Psychiatry 2020; 10:333. [PMID: 32999273 PMCID: PMC7528087 DOI: 10.1038/s41398-020-01015-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2020] [Revised: 09/04/2020] [Accepted: 09/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The current state of computer vision methods applied to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) research has not been well established. Increasing evidence suggests that computer vision techniques have a strong impact on autism research. The primary objective of this systematic review is to examine how computer vision analysis has been useful in ASD diagnosis, therapy and autism research in general. A systematic review of publications indexed on PubMed, IEEE Xplore and ACM Digital Library was conducted from 2009 to 2019. Search terms included ['autis*' AND ('computer vision' OR 'behavio* imaging' OR 'behavio* analysis' OR 'affective computing')]. Results are reported according to PRISMA statement. A total of 94 studies are included in the analysis. Eligible papers are categorised based on the potential biological/behavioural markers quantified in each study. Then, different computer vision approaches that were employed in the included papers are described. Different publicly available datasets are also reviewed in order to rapidly familiarise researchers with datasets applicable to their field and to accelerate both new behavioural and technological work on autism research. Finally, future research directions are outlined. The findings in this review suggest that computer vision analysis is useful for the quantification of behavioural/biological markers which can further lead to a more objective analysis in autism research.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Tomasz Bednarz
- School of Art & Design, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Arcot Sowmya
- School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Dennis Del Favero
- School of Art & Design, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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20
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Oxytocin biases eye-gaze to dynamic and static social images and the eyes of fearful faces: associations with trait autism. Transl Psychiatry 2020; 10:142. [PMID: 32398642 PMCID: PMC7217872 DOI: 10.1038/s41398-020-0830-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2019] [Revised: 04/21/2020] [Accepted: 04/28/2020] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
A key functional effect of intranasal oxytocin with potential therapeutic relevance for autism-spectrum disorder is its reported facilitation of attention towards social stimuli, notably the eye region of faces. In the current randomized placebo-controlled within-subject experiment on 40 healthy males, we investigated the robustness of this facilitation of attention by intranasal oxytocin (24IU) towards social cues. Eye-tracking measures of preference for dynamic and static social vs. non-social stimuli were taken in four different paradigms where autistic individuals tend to exhibit reduced interest in social stimuli. Additionally, we investigated whether oxytocin increases attention towards the eyes relative to other salient face regions in an emotional face paradigm. Results showed that the time spent viewing both dynamic and static social vs. non-social stimuli was negatively associated with trait autism and significantly increased following intranasal oxytocin. For face stimuli, oxytocin primarily increased gaze towards the eyes of fearful expression faces but not for other face emotions. Overall, our findings demonstrate that oxytocin significantly shifts gaze preference towards social vs. non-social stimuli and to the eyes of fearful faces. Importantly, oxytocin appears generally to shift attention more towards salient social stimuli of particular relevance in the context of autism providing further support for its potential therapeutic use in autism-spectrum disorder.
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21
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Li N, Fu D, Guo C, Zhou Y, Wang L, Feng Y. Study on the influence of different color temperature and illumination environment on cognitive processing depth. EVOLUTIONARY INTELLIGENCE 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s12065-019-00338-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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22
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Shiino T, Miura K, Fujimoto M, Kudo N, Yamamori H, Yasuda Y, Ikeda M, Hashimoto R. Comparison of eye movements in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder. Neuropsychopharmacol Rep 2019; 40:92-95. [PMID: 31774635 PMCID: PMC7292215 DOI: 10.1002/npr2.12085] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2019] [Revised: 10/04/2019] [Accepted: 10/15/2019] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Aim Eye movement abnormalities are often associated with psychiatric illness. Subjects with either schizophrenia or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been reported to show eye movement abnormalities. However, it is still unclear whether eye movement abnormalities in schizophrenia and in ASD have common features. This study aimed to understand the similarities/differences in eye movement abnormalities of subjects with schizophrenia and those with ASD. Methods We analyzed 75 eye movement characteristics of 83 subjects with schizophrenia, 17 subjects with ASD and 255 healthy controls that were collected during fixation, smooth pursuit and free viewing tasks using analysis of covariance with the covariates age and sex. Results We found significant effects across groups on 21 eye movement characteristics, of which 4 characteristics had large effect sizes. Post hoc multiple comparisons indicated significant differences between the subjects with schizophrenia and healthy controls across all 21 characteristics. On the other hand, no significant difference between the ASD group and healthy control group was found. Instead, the subjects with ASD showed significant differences from the subjects with schizophrenia in 5 eye movement characteristics during the free viewing and smooth pursuit eye movements. Conclusions The present results suggest that eye movement abnormalities in the subjects with ASD are different from those with schizophrenia and that the tasks in this study are suitable to detect eye movement abnormality in schizophrenia. Thus, the eye movement examinations used here may distinguish subjects with schizophrenia from those with ASD. This study aimed to understand the similarities/differences in eye movement abnormalities of subjects with schizophrenia and those with ASD. The subjects with ASD showed significant differences from the subjects with schizophrenia in five characteristics during the free viewing and smooth pursuit eye movements. The results suggest that eye movement abnormalities in the subjects with ASD are different from those with schizophrenia.![]()
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Affiliation(s)
- Tomoko Shiino
- Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan.,United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Suita, Japan.,Division of Psychosocial Support for Nurturing, Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Japan
| | - Kenichiro Miura
- Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan.,Department of Integrative Brain Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Michiko Fujimoto
- Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan.,Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan
| | - Noriko Kudo
- Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan
| | - Hidenaga Yamamori
- Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan.,Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan.,Japan Community Health care Organization, Osaka Hospital, Osaka, Japan
| | - Yuka Yasuda
- Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan.,Life Grow Brilliant Mental Clinic, Osaka, Japan
| | - Manabu Ikeda
- Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan
| | - Ryota Hashimoto
- Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan.,United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Suita, Japan.,Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan
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23
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Wang Q, Hoi SP, Wang Y, Song C, Li T, Lam CM, Fang F, Yi L. Out of mind, out of sight? Investigating abnormal face scanning in autism spectrum disorder using gaze‐contingent paradigm. Dev Sci 2019; 23:e12856. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12856] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2018] [Revised: 01/23/2019] [Accepted: 04/18/2019] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Qiandong Wang
- Peking‐Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies Peking University Beijing China
| | - Sio Pan Hoi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Science & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health Peking University Beijing China
| | - Yuyin Wang
- Department of Psychology Sun Yat‐sen University Guangzhou China
| | - Ci Song
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Science & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health Peking University Beijing China
| | - Tianbi Li
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Science & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health Peking University Beijing China
| | - Cheuk Man Lam
- Institute of Psychology Chinese Academy of Science Beijing China
| | - Fang Fang
- Peking‐Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies Peking University Beijing China
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Science & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health Peking University Beijing China
- Key Laboratory of Machine Perception (Ministry of Education) Peking University Beijing China
- PKU‐IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research Peking University Beijing China
| | - Li Yi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Science & Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health Peking University Beijing China
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24
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Howard PL, Zhang L, Benson V. What Can Eye Movements Tell Us about Subtle Cognitive Processing Differences in Autism? Vision (Basel) 2019; 3:E22. [PMID: 31735823 PMCID: PMC6802779 DOI: 10.3390/vision3020022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2019] [Revised: 05/15/2019] [Accepted: 05/18/2019] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is neurodevelopmental condition principally characterised by impairments in social interaction and communication, and repetitive behaviours and interests. This article reviews the eye movement studies designed to investigate the underlying sampling or processing differences that might account for the principal characteristics of autism. Following a brief summary of a previous review chapter by one of the authors of the current paper, a detailed review of eye movement studies investigating various aspects of processing in autism over the last decade will be presented. The literature will be organised into sections covering different cognitive components, including language and social communication and interaction studies. The aim of the review will be to show how eye movement studies provide a very useful on-line processing measure, allowing us to account for observed differences in behavioural data (accuracy and reaction times). The subtle processing differences that eye movement data reveal in both language and social processing have the potential to impact in the everyday communication domain in autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Philippa L Howard
- Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth BH12 5BB, UK
| | - Li Zhang
- Academy of Psychology and Behaviour, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300074, China
| | - Valerie Benson
- School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK
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25
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A Novel Eye Movement Data Transformation Technique that Preserves Temporal Information: A Demonstration in a Face Processing Task. SENSORS 2019; 19:s19102377. [PMID: 31126117 PMCID: PMC6567129 DOI: 10.3390/s19102377] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2019] [Revised: 05/07/2019] [Accepted: 05/22/2019] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
Existing research has shown that human eye-movement data conveys rich information about underlying mental processes, and that the latter may be inferred from the former. However, most related studies rely on spatial information about which different areas of visual stimuli were looked at, without considering the order in which this occurred. Although powerful algorithms for making pairwise comparisons between eye-movement sequences (scanpaths) exist, the problem is how to compare two groups of scanpaths, e.g., those registered with vs. without an experimental manipulation in place, rather than individual scanpaths. Here, we propose that the problem might be solved by projecting a scanpath similarity matrix, obtained via a pairwise comparison algorithm, to a lower-dimensional space (the comparison and dimensionality-reduction techniques we use are ScanMatch and t-SNE). The resulting distributions of low-dimensional vectors representing individual scanpaths can be statistically compared. To assess if the differences result from temporal scanpath features, we propose to statistically compare the cross-validated accuracies of two classifiers predicting group membership: (1) based exclusively on spatial metrics; (2) based additionally on the obtained scanpath representation vectors. To illustrate, we compare autistic vs. typically-developing individuals looking at human faces during a lab experiment and find significant differences in temporal scanpath features.
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Król ME, Król M. A novel machine learning analysis of eye-tracking data reveals suboptimal visual information extraction from facial stimuli in individuals with autism. Neuropsychologia 2019; 129:397-406. [PMID: 31071324 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.04.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2019] [Revised: 04/24/2019] [Accepted: 04/25/2019] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
We propose a new method of quantifying the utility of visual information extracted from facial stimuli for emotion recognition. The stimuli are convolved with a Gaussian fixation distribution estimate, revealing more information in those facial regions the participant fixated on. Feeding this convolution to a machine-learning emotion recognition algorithm yields an error measure (between actual and predicted emotions) reflecting the quality of extracted information. We recorded the eye-movements of 21 participants with autism and 23 age-, sex- and IQ-matched typically developing participants performing three facial analysis tasks: free-viewing, emotion recognition, and brow-mouth width comparison. In the emotion recognition task, fixations of participants with autism were positioned on lower areas of the faces and were less focused on the eyes compared to the typically developing group. Additionally, the utility of information extracted by them in the emotion recognition task was lower. Thus, the emotion recognition deficit typical in autism can be at least partly traced to the earliest stage of face processing, i.e. to the extraction of visual information via eye-fixations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Magdalena Ewa Król
- Wrocław Faculty of Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland.
| | - Michał Król
- School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
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Kuusikko-Gauffin S, Elsheikh S, Bölte S, Omar M, Riad G, Ebeling H, Rautio A, Moilanen I. Emotion recognition from the eye region in children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder in Arab and Scandinavian countries. Scand J Child Adolesc Psychiatr Psychol 2019; 6:159-169. [PMID: 33520762 PMCID: PMC7703843 DOI: 10.21307/sjcapp-2018-015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Difficulties in facial emotion recognition (ER) skills are linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in studies performed in Western and Eastern Asian countries. However, there is a paucity of research examining ER skills in Arab countries, where face-covering veils are more common than in Western countries. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to examine basic ER and ER error patterns in Egyptian and Finnish children with and without ASD. METHOD We employed the eye-submodule of the Frankfurt Test and Training of Facial Affect Recognition (FEFA) and the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ). RESULTS Arab children with ASD (n = 34, M age = 8.6 years, FSIQ = 96.7) recognized correctly fewer emotions than did Scandinavian children with ASD (n = 32, M age = 12.5 years, FSIQ = 102.8) and Arab typically developing (TD) children (n = 34, M age = 10.3 years, FSIQ = 123.4) in general and specifically on surprise, disgust and neutral scales as well as on a blended emotion scale. Scandinavian children with ASD demonstrated a lower ability to recognize emotions in general and specifically happiness than did Scandinavian TD children. There were no differences between Arab and Scandinavian (n = 28, M age = 13.9 years) TD children in ER accuracy. We found country specific differences in ER error patterns in happiness, sadness and anger: Arab children interpreted these emotions more often as another emotion (happiness = sadness, sadness = anger, anger = sadness and surprise), whereas Scandinavian children interpreted happiness and sadness as neutral expression and anger as disgust. Arab children with ASD labeled sadness and anger in their ER error patterns more negatively than did Arab TD children, but there were no differences between Scandinavian children with ASD and TD in ER error patterns. CONCLUSIONS The differences between the Arab and Scandinavian children may reflect cultural differences in ER and ER error patterns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sanna Kuusikko-Gauffin
- PEDEGO Research Unit, Child Psychiatry, Medical Faculty, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
| | - Sherin Elsheikh
- PEDEGO Research Unit, Child Psychiatry, Medical Faculty, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
- Child Psychiatry Unit, Abbassia Mental Hospital, Cairo, Egypt
| | - Sven Bölte
- Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (KIND), Pediatric Neuropsychiatry Unit, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center of Psychiatry Research, Stockholm County Council, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Manal Omar
- Institute of Postgraduate Childhood Studies, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
| | - Geylan Riad
- Faculty of Arts, Psychology Department, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt
| | - Hanna Ebeling
- PEDEGO Research Unit, Child Psychiatry, Medical Faculty, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
- Clinic of Child Psychiatry, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland
| | - Arja Rautio
- Arctic Health, Faculty of Medicine and Thule Institute, University of Oulu, Finland
| | - Irma Moilanen
- PEDEGO Research Unit, Child Psychiatry, Medical Faculty, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
- Clinic of Child Psychiatry, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland
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He Y, Su Q, Wang L, He W, Tan C, Zhang H, Ng ML, Yan N, Chen Y. The Characteristics of Intelligence Profile and Eye Gaze in Facial Emotion Recognition in Mild and Moderate Preschoolers With Autism Spectrum Disorder. Front Psychiatry 2019; 10:402. [PMID: 31281268 PMCID: PMC6596453 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00402] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2018] [Accepted: 05/21/2019] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Childhood autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can easily be misdiagnosed, due to the nonspecific social and communicational deficits associated with the disorder. The present study attempted to profile the mental development and visual attention toward emotion among preschool children with mild or moderate ASD who were attending mainstream kindergartens. A total of 21 children (17 boys and 4 girls) diagnosed with mild or moderate ASD selected from 5,178 kindergarteners from the Xi'an city were recruited. Another group of 21 typically developing (TD) children who were matched with age, gender, and class served as controls. All children were assessed using the Griffiths Mental Development Scales-Chinese (GDS-C), and their social visual attention was assessed during watching 20 ecologically valid film scenes by using eye tracking technique. The results showed that ASD children had lower mental development scores in the Locomotor, Personal-Social, Language, Performance, and Practical Reasoning subscales than the TD peers. Moreover, deficits in recognizing emotions from facial expressions based on naturalistic scene stimuli with voice were found for ASD children. The deficits were significantly correlated with their ability in social interaction and development quotient in ASD group. ASD children showed atypical eye-gaze pattern when compared to TD children during facial emotion expression task. Children with ASD had reduced visual attention to facial emotion expression, especially for the eye region. The findings confirmed the deficits of ASD children in real life multimodal of emotion recognition, and their atypical eye-gaze pattern for emotion recognition. Parents and teachers of children with mild or moderate ASD should make informed educational decisions according to their level of mental development. In addition, eye tracking technique might clinically help provide evidence diagnosing children with mild or moderate ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuying He
- Department of Pediatrics, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Center, Xi'an, China.,Child Healthcare Department, Xi'an Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Xi'an, China
| | - Qi Su
- CAS Key Laboratory of Human-Machine Intelligence-Synergy Systems, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
| | - Lan Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Human-Machine Intelligence-Synergy Systems, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.,Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Robotics and Intelligent System, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
| | - Wenxiang He
- Department of Pediatrics, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Xianyang, China
| | - Chuanxue Tan
- Child Healthcare Department, Xi'an Children's Hospital, Xi'an, China
| | - Haiqing Zhang
- Department of Pediatrics, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Xianyang, China
| | - Manwa L Ng
- Speech Science Laboratory, Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Nan Yan
- CAS Key Laboratory of Human-Machine Intelligence-Synergy Systems, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.,Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Robotics and Intelligent System, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China
| | - Yanni Chen
- Department of Pediatrics, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Center, Xi'an, China.,Department of Pediatrics, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Xianyang, China.,Child Healthcare Department, Xi'an Children's Hospital, Xi'an, China
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Feng S, Wang X, Wang Q, Fang J, Wu Y, Yi L, Wei K. The uncanny valley effect in typically developing children and its absence in children with autism spectrum disorders. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0206343. [PMID: 30383848 PMCID: PMC6211702 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206343] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2018] [Accepted: 10/01/2018] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Robots and virtual reality are gaining popularity in the intervention of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To shed light on children’s attitudes towards robots and characters in virtual reality, this study aims to examine whether children with ASD show the uncanny valley effect. We varied the realism of facial appearance by morphing a cartoon face into a human face, and induced perceptual mismatch by enlarging the eyes, which has previously been shown as an effective method to induce the uncanny valley effect in adults. Children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children participated in a two-alternative forced choice task that asked them to choose one they liked more from the two images presented on the screen. We found that TD children showed the effect, i.e., the enlargement of eye size and the approaching realism reduced their preference. In contrast, children with ASD did not show the uncanny valley effect. Our findings in TD children help resolve the controversy in the literature about the existence of the uncanny valley effect among young children. Meanwhile, the absence of the uncanny valley effect in children with ASD might be attributed to their reduced sensitivity to subtle changes of face features and their limited visual experience to faces caused by diminished social motivation. Last, our findings provide practical implications for designing robots and virtual characters for the intervention of children with ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuyuan Feng
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Xueqin Wang
- Department of Statistical Science, School of Mathematics and Computational Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
- Southern China Research Center of Statistical Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Qiandong Wang
- Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Jing Fang
- Qingdao Autism Research Institute, Qingdao, Shandong, China
| | - Yaxue Wu
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Li Yi
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
- * E-mail: (LY); (KW)
| | - Kunlin Wei
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
- * E-mail: (LY); (KW)
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Tan E, Wu X, Nishida T, Huang D, Chen Z, Yi L. Analogical Reasoning in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence From an Eye-Tracking Approach. Front Psychol 2018; 9:847. [PMID: 29899718 PMCID: PMC5989539 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00847] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/28/2017] [Accepted: 05/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study examined analogical reasoning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its relationship with cognitive and executive functioning and processing strategies. Our findings showed that although children with ASD were less competent in solving analogical problems than typically developing children, this inferior performance was attributable to general cognitive impairments. Eye-movement analyses revealed that children with ASD paid less attention to relational items and showed fewer gaze shifts between relational locations. Nevertheless, these eye-movement patterns did not predict autistic children’s behavioral performance. Together, our findings suggest that ASD per se does not entail impairments in analogical reasoning. The inferior performance of autistic children on analogical reasoning tasks is attributable to deficits in general cognitive and executive functioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enda Tan
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
| | - Xueyuan Wu
- Guangzhou Cana School, Guangzhou, China.,Guangzhou Rehabilitation and Research Center for Children with ASD, Guangzhou, China
| | - Tracy Nishida
- Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States
| | - Dan Huang
- Guangzhou Cana School, Guangzhou, China.,Guangzhou Rehabilitation and Research Center for Children with ASD, Guangzhou, China
| | - Zhe Chen
- Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States
| | - Li Yi
- Department of Psychology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China
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Fedor J, Lynn A, Foran W, DiCicco-Bloom J, Luna B, O'Hearn K. Patterns of fixation during face recognition: Differences in autism across age. AUTISM : THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PRACTICE 2017; 22:866-880. [PMID: 28782371 DOI: 10.1177/1362361317714989] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Difficulties with face recognition increase from adolescence to adulthood in autism, reflecting a lack of typical late development. We examined whether this reflects differences in the development of patterns of fixation to eyes and mouths during face recognition. Children, adolescents, and adults (aged 7-30) with and without autism completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test while gaze was recorded. Average duration and number of fixations were calculated for eyes and mouth regions of interest, defined individually for each face image in the task. All groups and age groups made more and longer fixations to eyes than mouths. However, during face memorization, typically developing children and adults, but not adolescents, made more fixations to eyes than did their peers with autism. During face recognition, typically developing children and adults made shorter fixations on mouths than did their peers with autism; this pattern was reversed in adolescence, with adolescents with autism making more fixations to mouths than typically developing adolescents. Results suggest that group differences in patterns of fixations to faces change with age. Furthermore, different relationships between patterns of fixations and face recognition performance in typical development and autism suggest that these differences contribute, at least in part, to difficulties in autism.
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33
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Lyyra P, Wirth JH, Hietanen JK. Are you looking my way? Ostracism widens the cone of gaze. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2017; 70:1713-1721. [DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2016.1204327] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2023]
Abstract
Ostracized individuals demonstrate an increased need for belonging. To satisfy this need, they search for signals of inclusion, one of which may be another person's gaze directed at oneself. We tested if ostracized, compared to included, individuals judge a greater degree of averted gaze as still being direct. This range of gaze angles still viewed as direct has been dubbed “the cone of (direct) gaze”. In the current research, ostracized and included participants viewed friendly-looking face stimuli with direct or slightly averted gaze (0°, 2°, 4°, 6°, and 8° to the left and to the right) and judged whether stimulus persons were looking at them or not. Ostracized individuals demonstrated a wider gaze cone than included individuals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pessi Lyyra
- Human Information Processing Laboratory, School of Social Sciences and Humanities/Psychology, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
| | - James H. Wirth
- Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University at Newark, Newark, OH, USA
| | - Jari K. Hietanen
- Human Information Processing Laboratory, School of Social Sciences and Humanities/Psychology, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
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Higuchi T, Ishizaki Y, Noritake A, Yanagimoto Y, Kobayashi H, Nakamura K, Kaneko K. Spatiotemporal characteristics of gaze of children with autism spectrum disorders while looking at classroom scenes. PLoS One 2017; 12:e0175912. [PMID: 28472111 PMCID: PMC5417526 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175912] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2016] [Accepted: 04/02/2017] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who have neurodevelopmental impairments in social communication often refuse to go to school because of difficulties in learning in class. The exact cause of maladaptation to school in such children is unknown. We hypothesized that these children have difficulty in paying attention to objects at which teachers are pointing. We performed gaze behavior analysis of children with ASD to understand their difficulties in the classroom. The subjects were 26 children with ASD (19 boys and 7 girls; mean age, 8.6 years) and 27 age-matched children with typical development (TD) (14 boys and 13 girls; mean age, 8.2 years). We measured eye movements of the children while they performed free viewing of two movies depicting actual classes: a Japanese class in which a teacher pointed at cartoon characters and an arithmetic class in which the teacher pointed at geometric figures. In the analysis, we defined the regions of interest (ROIs) as the teacher's face and finger, the cartoon characters and geometric figures at which the teacher pointed, and the classroom wall that contained no objects. We then compared total gaze time for each ROI between the children with ASD and TD by two-way ANOVA. Children with ASD spent less gaze time on the cartoon characters pointed at by the teacher; they spent more gaze time on the wall in both classroom scenes. We could differentiate children with ASD from those with TD almost perfectly by the proportion of total gaze time that children with ASD spent looking at the wall. These results suggest that children with ASD do not follow the teacher's instructions in class and persist in gazing at inappropriate visual areas such as walls. Thus, they may have difficulties in understanding content in class, leading to maladaptation to school.
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Affiliation(s)
- Takahiro Higuchi
- Department of Pediatrics, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
| | - Yuko Ishizaki
- Department of Pediatrics, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
| | - Atsushi Noritake
- Department of Physiology, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
| | | | - Hodaka Kobayashi
- Department of Pediatrics, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
| | - Kae Nakamura
- Department of Physiology, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
| | - Kazunari Kaneko
- Department of Pediatrics, Kansai Medical University, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan
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Hessels RS, Kemner C, van den Boomen C, Hooge ITC. The area-of-interest problem in eyetracking research: A noise-robust solution for face and sparse stimuli. Behav Res Methods 2016; 48:1694-1712. [PMID: 26563395 PMCID: PMC5101255 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-015-0676-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 86] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
A problem in eyetracking research is choosing areas of interest (AOIs): Researchers in the same field often use widely varying AOIs for similar stimuli, making cross-study comparisons difficult or even impossible. Subjective choices while choosing AOIs cause differences in AOI shape, size, and location. On the other hand, not many guidelines for constructing AOIs, or comparisons between AOI-production methods, are available. In the present study, we addressed this gap by comparing AOI-production methods in face stimuli, using data collected with infants and adults (with autism spectrum disorder [ASD] and matched controls). Specifically, we report that the attention-attracting and attention-maintaining capacities of AOIs differ between AOI-production methods, and that this matters for statistical comparisons in one of three groups investigated (the ASD group). In addition, we investigated the relation between AOI size and an AOI's attention-attracting and attention-maintaining capacities, as well as the consequences for statistical analyses, and report that adopting large AOIs solves the problem of statistical differences between the AOI methods. Finally, we tested AOI-production methods for their robustness to noise, and report that large AOIs-using the Voronoi tessellation method or the limited-radius Voronoi tessellation method with large radii-are most robust to noise. We conclude that large AOIs are a noise-robust solution in face stimuli and, when implemented using the Voronoi method, are the most objective of the researcher-defined AOIs. Adopting Voronoi AOIs in face-scanning research should allow better between-group and cross-study comparisons.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roy S Hessels
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
| | - Chantal Kemner
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Carlijn van den Boomen
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Ignace T C Hooge
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3584CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands
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36
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Reduced saccadic inhibition of return to moving eyes in autism spectrum disorders. Vision Res 2016; 127:115-121. [DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2016.07.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2016] [Revised: 07/14/2016] [Accepted: 07/14/2016] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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37
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Müller N, Baumeister S, Dziobek I, Banaschewski T, Poustka L. Validation of the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition in Adolescents with ASD: Fixation Duration and Pupil Dilation as Predictors of Performance. J Autism Dev Disord 2016; 46:2831-44. [DOI: 10.1007/s10803-016-2828-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
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38
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Chita-Tegmark M. Attention Allocation in ASD: a Review and Meta-analysis of Eye-Tracking Studies. REVIEW JOURNAL OF AUTISM AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 2016. [DOI: 10.1007/s40489-016-0077-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 60] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
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Arizpe J, Kravitz DJ, Walsh V, Yovel G, Baker CI. Differences in Looking at Own- and Other-Race Faces Are Subtle and Analysis-Dependent: An Account of Discrepant Reports. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0148253. [PMID: 26849447 PMCID: PMC4744017 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2015] [Accepted: 01/16/2016] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
The Other-Race Effect (ORE) is the robust and well-established finding that people are generally poorer at facial recognition of individuals of another race than of their own race. Over the past four decades, much research has focused on the ORE because understanding this phenomenon is expected to elucidate fundamental face processing mechanisms and the influence of experience on such mechanisms. Several recent studies of the ORE in which the eye-movements of participants viewing own- and other-race faces were tracked have, however, reported highly conflicting results regarding the presence or absence of differential patterns of eye-movements to own- versus other-race faces. This discrepancy, of course, leads to conflicting theoretical interpretations of the perceptual basis for the ORE. Here we investigate fixation patterns to own- versus other-race (African and Chinese) faces for Caucasian participants using different analysis methods. While we detect statistically significant, though subtle, differences in fixation pattern using an Area of Interest (AOI) approach, we fail to detect significant differences when applying a spatial density map approach. Though there were no significant differences in the spatial density maps, the qualitative patterns matched the results from the AOI analyses reflecting how, in certain contexts, Area of Interest (AOI) analyses can be more sensitive in detecting the differential fixation patterns than spatial density analyses, due to spatial pooling of data with AOIs. AOI analyses, however, also come with the limitation of requiring a priori specification. These findings provide evidence that the conflicting reports in the prior literature may be at least partially accounted for by the differences in the statistical sensitivity associated with the different analysis methods employed across studies. Overall, our results suggest that detection of differences in eye-movement patterns can be analysis-dependent and rests on the assumptions inherent in the given analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph Arizpe
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
- Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Group, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- Department of Neurology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America
- Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America
- * E-mail:
| | - Dwight J. Kravitz
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
- Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., United States of America
| | - Vincent Walsh
- Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Group, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Galit Yovel
- Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Chris I. Baker
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America
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40
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Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder scan own-race faces differently from other-race faces. J Exp Child Psychol 2016; 141:177-86. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2015] [Revised: 09/14/2015] [Accepted: 09/14/2015] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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The effect of back support on attention in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A pilot study testing André Bullinger's model1. ENFANCE 2015. [DOI: 10.4074/s0013754515004139] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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Pereira Rahme I, Parlato de Oliveira E. The effect of back support on attention in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A pilot study testing André Bullinger's model. ENFANCE 2015. [DOI: 10.3917/enf1.154.0515] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022]
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Abstract
Visual scanning of faces in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been intensively studied using eye-tracking technology. However, most of studies have relied on the same analytic approach based on the quantification of fixation time, which may have failed to reveal some important features of the scanning strategies employed by individuals with ASD. In the present study, we examined the scanning of faces in a group of 20 preschoolers with ASD and their typically developing (TD) peers, using both classical fixation time approach and a new developed approach based on transition matrices and network analysis. We found between group differences in the eye region in terms of fixation time, with increased right eye fixation time for the ASD group and increased left eye fixation time for the TD group. Our complementary network approach revealed that the left eye might play the role of an anchor in the scanning strategies of TD children but not in that of children with ASD. In ASD, fixation time on the different facial parts was almost exclusively dependent on exploratory activity. Our study highlights the importance of developing innovative measures that bear the potential of revealing new properties of the scanning strategies employed by individuals with ASD.
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Amestoy A, Guillaud E, Bouvard MP, Cazalets JR. Developmental changes in face visual scanning in autism spectrum disorder as assessed by data-based analysis. Front Psychol 2015; 6:989. [PMID: 26236264 PMCID: PMC4503892 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00989] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/28/2015] [Accepted: 06/29/2015] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present reduced visual attention to faces. However, contradictory conclusions have been drawn about the strategies involved in visual face scanning due to the various methodologies implemented in the study of facial screening. Here, we used a data-driven approach to compare children and adults with ASD subjected to the same free viewing task and to address developmental aspects of face scanning, including its temporal patterning, in healthy children, and adults. Four groups (54 subjects) were included in the study: typical adults, typically developing children, and adults and children with ASD. Eye tracking was performed on subjects viewing unfamiliar faces. Fixations were analyzed using a data-driven approach that employed spatial statistics to provide an objective, unbiased definition of the areas of interest. Typical adults expressed a spatial and temporal strategy for visual scanning that differed from the three other groups, involving a sequential fixation of the right eye (RE), left eye (LE), and mouth. Typically developing children, adults and children with autism exhibited similar fixation patterns and they always started by looking at the RE. Children (typical or with ASD) subsequently looked at the LE or the mouth. Based on the present results, the patterns of fixation for static faces that mature from childhood to adulthood in typical subjects are not found in adults with ASD. The atypical patterns found after developmental progression and experience in ASD groups appear to remain blocked in an immature state that cannot be differentiated from typical developmental child patterns of fixation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anouck Amestoy
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Charles Perrens Hospital, Université de Bordeaux, BordeauxFrance
- CNRS UMR 5287, Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d’Aquitaine, Université de Bordeaux, BordeauxFrance
| | - Etienne Guillaud
- CNRS UMR 5287, Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d’Aquitaine, Université de Bordeaux, BordeauxFrance
| | - Manuel P. Bouvard
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Charles Perrens Hospital, Université de Bordeaux, BordeauxFrance
- CNRS UMR 5287, Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d’Aquitaine, Université de Bordeaux, BordeauxFrance
| | - Jean-René Cazalets
- CNRS UMR 5287, Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d’Aquitaine, Université de Bordeaux, BordeauxFrance
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Yi L, Quinn PC, Feng C, Li J, Ding H, Lee K. Do individuals with autism spectrum disorder process own- and other-race faces differently? Vision Res 2014; 107:124-32. [PMID: 25542277 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2014.11.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2014] [Revised: 11/09/2014] [Accepted: 11/12/2014] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) process human faces in atypical ways according to previous literature. We investigated whether individuals with ASD can process face race information and respond to own- and other-race faces differentially. Chinese individuals with ASD (n=24), typically developing (TD) individuals (n=28), and individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID, n=26) were asked to recognize Chinese and Caucasian faces in an old-new face paradigm using eye tracking. In terms of recognition, the ASD and ID groups did not perform differently and displayed superior own-race recognition compared with other-race faces; TD participants displayed similar recognition of the two types of faces. In terms of eye tracking, the TD, ASD, and ID groups displayed more looking on the eyes and less looking on the nose and mouth of Caucasian faces relative to Chinese faces. Overall, individuals with ASD manifested a behavioral other-race effect and displayed the same type of cross-racial differentiation in face scanning observed in TD individuals. The findings suggest that as is the case with TD individuals, face processing of individuals with ASD is influenced by differences in visual experience with different face categories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li Yi
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, China.
| | - Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, USA
| | - Cong Feng
- Department of Philosophy, Sun Yat-sen University, China; Institute of Logic and Cognition, Sun Yat-sen University, China
| | - Jiao Li
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, China
| | - Haiyan Ding
- Guangzhou Zhanneng Vocational Training Center for the Disabled, China
| | - Kang Lee
- Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada; School of Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China.
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