Can children resist making interpretations when uncertain?

In two experiments we examined young children’s ability to delay a response to ambiguous input. In Experiment 1 5- and 6- year olds performed as poorly when they had to choose between basing an interpretation on ambiguous input and delaying an interpretation as when making explicit evaluations of knowledge. Seven- and 8- year olds’ found the former task easy. In Experiment 2 5- and 6- year olds performed well on a task that required delaying a response but removed the need to decide between strategies. We discuss children’s difficulty with ambiguity in terms of the decision making demands made by different procedures. These demands appear to cause particular problems for young children

Do gaze cues in complex scenes capture and direct the attention of high functioning adolescents with ASD? evidence from eye-tracking

Visual fixation patterns whilst viewing complex photographic scenes containing one person were studied in 24 high-functioning adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and 24 matched typically developing adolescents. Over two different scene presentation durations both groups spent a large, strikingly similar proportion of their viewing time fixating the person’s face. However, time-course analyses revealed differences between groups in priorities of attention to the region of the face containing the eyes. It was also noted that although individuals with ASD were rapidly cued by the gaze direction of the person in the scene, this was not followed by an immediate increase in total fixation duration at the location of gaze, which was the case for typically developing individuals

The eye gaze direction of an observed person can bias perception, memory, and attention in adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder

The reported experiments aimed to investigate whether a person and his or her gaze direction presented in the context of a naturalistic scene cause perception, memory, and attention to be biased in typically developing adolescents and high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A novel computerized image manipulation program presented a series of photographic scenes, each containing a person. The program enabled participants to laterally maneuver the scenes behind a static window, the borders of which partially occluded the scenes. The gaze direction of the person in the scenes spontaneously cued attention of both groups in the direction of gaze, affecting judgments of preference (Experiment 1a) and causing memory biases (Experiment 1b). Experiment 2 showed that the gaze direction of a person cues visual search accurately to the exact location of gaze in both groups. These findings suggest that biases in preference, memory, and attention are caused by another person's gaze direction when viewed in a complex scene in adolescents with and without ASD (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

The eye gaze direction of an observed person can bias perception, memory, and attention in adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder

The reported experiments aimed to investigate whether a person and his or her gaze direction presented in the context of a naturalistic scene cause perception, memory, and attention to be biased in typically developing adolescents and high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A novel computerized image manipulation program presented a series of photographic scenes, each containing a person. The program enabled participants to laterally maneuver the scenes behind a static window, the borders of which partially occluded the scenes. The gaze direction of the person in the scenes spontaneously cued attention of both groups in the direction of gaze, affecting judgments of preference (Experiment 1a) and causing memory biases (Experiment 1b). Experiment 2 showed that the gaze direction of a person cues visual search accurately to the exact location of gaze in both groups. These findings suggest that biases in preference, memory, and attention are caused by another person's gaze direction when viewed in a complex scene in adolescents with and without ASD (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Students’ Stereotypes of Autism

This research aimed to ascertain the contents (Study 1) and valence (Study 2) of the stereotype associated with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) in university students. Study 1 used a free-response methodology where participants listed the characteristics that they thought society associates with individuals with ASC. This study revealed that the stereotypic traits most frequently reported by students without personal experience of ASC were poor social skills, being introverted and withdrawn, poor communication and difficult personality or behaviour. Study 2 had participants rate the valence of the 10 most frequently mentioned stereotypic traits identified in Study 1, along with additional traits frequently used to describe disabled and non-disabled people. This study found that eight of the ten most frequently listed stereotypic traits from Study 1 were seen as negative, and were rated significantly more negatively than traits used to describe non-disabled people. The knowledge of the contents and valence of the stereotype of ASC gained from this research can be used to tackle negative aspects of this stereotype

Characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Sotos Syndrome

Sotos syndrome is a congenital overgrowth disorder with an incidence of approximately 1 in 14,000. This study investigated behavioural characteristics of ASD within a large cohort of individuals with Sotos syndrome (n=78). As measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale, second edition (SRS-2), 65 participants (83.33%) met clinical cut-off (T-score ≥60). There was no significant gender difference in symptom severity. There was a significant effect of age, with lower scores observed in early childhood and adulthood, compared to childhood. Furthermore, individuals with Sotos syndrome appear to display a trait profile that is similar to that identified in ASD. Overall, these findings indicate that the majority of individuals with Sotos syndrome display clinically significant behavioural symptomatology associated with ASD

Brief report: how adolescents with ASD process social information in complex scenes. Combining evidence from eye movements and verbal descriptions

We investigated attention, encoding and processing of social aspects of complex photographic scenes. Twenty-four high-functioning adolescents (aged 11–16) with ASD and 24 typically developing matched control participants viewed and then described a series of scenes, each containing a person. Analyses of eye movements and verbal descriptions provided converging evidence that both groups displayed general interest in the person in each scene but the salience of the person was reduced for the ASD participants. Nevertheless, the verbal descriptions revealed that participants with ASD frequently processed the observed person’s emotion or mental state without prompting. They also often mentioned eye-gaze direction, and there was evidence from eye movements and verbal descriptions that gaze was followed accurately. The combination of evidence from eye movements and verbal descriptions provides a rich insight into the way stimuli are processed overall. The merits of using these methods within the same paradigm are discussed

How accurate are autistic adults and those high in autistic traits at making face-to-face line-of-sight judgements?

Being able to follow the direction of another person’s line-of-sight facilitates social communication. To date, much research on the processes involved in social communication has been conducted using computer-based tasks that lack ecological validity. The current paradigm assesses how accurately participants can follow a social partner’s line-of-sight in a face-to-face scenario. In Study 1, autistic and neurotypical adults were asked to identify which location, on a grid of 36 potential locations, the experimenter was looking at on a series of discrete trials. All participants (both autistic and neurotypical) were able to effectively make line-of-sight judgements, scoring significantly above chance. Participants were also just as effective at making these judgements from either a brief, 1s, glance or from a prolonged, 5s, stare. However, at the group level, autistic participants were significantly less accurate than neurotypical participants overall. In Study 2, potential variation in performance along the broad autism phenotype was considered using the same paradigm. Bayesian analyses demonstrated that line-of-sight judgement accuracy was not related to the amount of autistic traits. Overall, these findings advance the understanding of the mechanistic processes of social communication in relation to autism and autistic traits in a face-to-face setting

The Understanding of Communicative Intentions in Children with Severe-to-Profound Hearing Loss

The ability to distinguish lies from sincere false statements requires understanding a speaker’s communicative intentions and is argued to develop through linguistic interaction. We tested whether this ability was delayed in 26 children with severe-to-profound hearing loss who, based on vocabulary size, were thought to have relatively limited access to linguistic exchanges compared to typically hearing peers (n = 93). Children were presented with toy bears who either lied or made a false statement sincerely. Despite identifying speakers’ knowledge/ignorance, deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) children were delayed in identifying lies and sincere false statements when matched for chronological age. When matched for receptive vocabulary, observed discrepancies diminished. Deaf children who experienced early access to conversations with their deaf parents demonstrated no delay. Findings suggest limited access to linguistic exchanges delays the development of a key pragmatic skill

Brief Report: Patterns of Eye Movements in Face to Face Conversation are Associated with Autistic Traits: Evidence from a Student Sample

The current study investigated whether the amount of autistic traits shown by an individual is associated with viewing behaviour during a face-to-face interaction. The eye movements of 36 neurotypical university students were recorded using a mobile eye-tracking device. High amounts of autistic traits were neither associated with reduced looking to the social partner overall, nor with reduced looking to the face. However, individuals who were high in autistic traits exhibited reduced visual exploration during the face-to-face interaction overall, as demonstrated by shorter and less frequent saccades. Visual exploration was not related to social anxiety. This study suggests that there are systematic individual differences in visual exploration during social interactions and these are related to amount of autistic traits