Atypical and variable attention patterns reveal reduced contextual priors in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Autism Res
; 17(8): 1572-1585, 2024 Aug.
Article
de En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38975627
ABSTRACT
Accumulating evidence suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairments in using contextual priors to predict others' actions and make intention inference. Yet less is known about whether and how children with ASD acquire contextual priors during action observation and how contextual priors relate to their action prediction and intention inference. To form proper contextual priors, individuals need to observe the social scenes in a reliable manner and focus on socially relevant information. By employing a data-driven scan path method and areas of interest (AOI)-based analysis, the current study investigated how contextual priors would relate to action prediction and intention understanding in 4-to-9-year-old children with ASD (N = 56) and typically developing (TD) children (N = 50) during free viewing of dynamic social scenes with different intentions. Results showed that children with ASD exhibited higher intra-subject variability when scanning social scenes and reduced attention to socially relevant areas. Moreover, children with high-level action prediction and intention understanding showed lower intra-subject variability and increased attention to socially relevant areas. These findings suggest that altered fixation patterns might restrain children with ASD from acquiring proper contextual priors, which has cascading downstream effects on their action prediction and intention understanding.
Mots clés
Texte intégral:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Base de données:
MEDLINE
Sujet principal:
Attention
/
Trouble du spectre autistique
Limites:
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Langue:
En
Journal:
Autism Res
Sujet du journal:
PSIQUIATRIA
/
TRANSTORNOS MENTAIS
Année:
2024
Type de document:
Article
Pays d'affiliation:
Chine
Pays de publication:
États-Unis d'Amérique