Investigating social gaze as an action-perception online performance

Gaze represents a major non-verbal communication channel in social interactions. In this respect, when facing another person, one's gaze should not be examined as a purely perceptive process but also as an action-perception online performance. However, little is known about processes involved in the real-time self-regulation of social gaze. The present study investigates the impact of a gaze-contingent viewing window on fixation patterns and the awareness of being the agent moving the window. In face-to-face scenarios played by a virtual human character, the task for the 18 adult participants was to interpret an equivocal sentence which could be disambiguated by examining the emotional expressions of the character speaking. The virtual character was embedded in naturalistic backgrounds to enhance realism. Eye-tracking data showed that the viewing window induced changes in gaze behavior, notably longer visual fixations. Notwithstanding, only half of the participants ascribed the window displacements to their eye movements. These participants also spent more time looking at the eyes and mouth regions of the virtual human character. The outcomes of the study highlight the dissociation between non-volitional gaze adaptation and the self-ascription of agency. Such dissociation provides support for a two-step account of the sense of agency composed of pre-noetic monitoring mechanisms and reflexive processes, linked by bottom-up and top-down processes. We comment upon these results, which illustrate the relevance of our method for studying online social cognition, in particular concerning autism spectrum disorders (ASD) where the poor pragmatic understanding of oral speech is considered linked to visual peculiarities that impede facial exploration

Sense of agency in joint action: a critical review of we-agency

The sense of agency refers to the experience of control over voluntary actions and their effects. There is growing interest in the notion of we-agency, whereby individual sense of agency is supplanted by a collective agentic experience. The existence of this unique agentic state would have profound implications for human responsibility, and, as such, warrants further scrutiny. In this paper, we review the concept of we-agency and examine whether evidence supports it. We argue that this concept entails multiplying hypothetical agentic states associated with joint action, thus ending up with an entangled phenomenology that appears somewhat speculative when weighted against the available evidence. In light of this, we suggest that the concept of we-agency should be abandoned in favour of a more parsimonious framework for the sense of agency in joint action

Interfaces homme-machines multimédias (conception d'applications éducatives adaptées à l'autisme de haut niveau)

Les spécialistes de l'autisme portent un intérêt grandissant pour l'éducation spécialisée assistée par ordinateur. L'objectif de notre recherche est d'aboutir à des recommandations pour la conception de logiciels éducatifs spécialisés pour l'autisme. Cette étude exploratoire s'appuie sur un protocole expérimental permettant d'étudier deux dimensions : le domaine d'apprentissage ciblé par les jeux éducatifs (la planification spatiale versus la compréhension de dialogues), et les modalités utilisées dans l'Interface Homme Machine (IHM). Nous avons spécifié et développé des jeux informatisés que nous avons testés avec 10 adolescents autistes de haut niveau. L'apprentissage était évalué par comparaison entre les performances avant et après une période d'entraînement. Lors des évaluations, une interface multimodale spécifique à chaque exercice était comparée avec une interface minimaliste comportant moins de modalités, mais suffisamment pour résoudre l'exercice. En outre, différentes IHM ont été testées au cours de l'entraînement. Le protocole est composé de 13 sessions, à raison d'une session par semaine. Nous avons répliqué l'expérience avec un groupe contrôle de 10 enfants sans autisme. Nous avons développé une plate-forme informatique qui permettait de contrôler les modalités des IHM et d'enregistrer les actions des utilisateurs. En outre, nous avons annoté les enregistrements vidéos de deux sessions avec les sujets autistes. Les résultats ont permis de mettre en évidence le rôle joué par les fonctions exécutives dans l'activité informatique. Ils tendent à montrer également que pour les personnes autistes, la multimodalité n'apparaît pas forcément comme un avantage.Psychopathologists express growing interest in the use of computers for special education of people with autism. Our research aims at providing design guidelines for educational software dedicated to specialized teaching for autism. This exploratory investigation relies on an experimental protocol focusing on the study of two dimensions: the domain of learning targeted by educative games (spatial planning versus dialogue understanding) and modalities used in Human Computer Interfaces (HCI). We designed computer games that were tested with 10 teenagers diagnosed with high functioning autism. The subjects' skills were assessed before and after a training period. During evaluation phases, we also controlled for the impact of multimodal as compared to minimalist, task oriented interfaces. Moreover, different HCI were tested during training. The experiment comprised 13 sessions, at the rate of one session per week. We replicated the experiment with a control group of 10 children without autism. A software platform was developed to control HCI modalities and to log users' actions. Moreover, we annotated video recordings of two sessions with the subjects with autism. Results led to underline the role played by executive functions during the interaction with a computer. They also tended to show that multimodality is not necessarily an advantage for people with autism.ORSAY-PARIS 11-BU Sciences (914712101) / SudocNANCY-INRIA Lorraine LORIA (545472304) / SudocSudocFranceF

Social gaze training for Autism Spectrum Disorder using eye-tracking and virtual humans

International audienceAbstract Background: Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have pronounced difficulties in attending to relevant visual information during social interactions. Method: We designed and evaluated the feasibility of a novel method to train this ability, by exposing participants to virtual human characters displayed on a screen which was entirely blurred, except for a gaze-contingent viewing window that followed participants’ eyes direction. The goal was to incite participants to direct their gaze towards the facial expressions of the virtual characters. Twenty-one adolescents with ASD who attended ordinary school were randomized to either an experimental group, who was trained during a month and a half, or to a control group. Social communicative abilities were assessed during pre, post and follow-up tests. Results: After training, the experimental group showed significantly more interest in facial expressions on a test which involved understanding a dialogue. Significant differences were not found for the other tests used. Conclusions: This outcome suggests that the training method fostered participants’ awareness of the relevance of facial expressions

Investigating attention in young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using change blindness and eye tracking

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Change Blindness in Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Use of Eye-Tracking

International audienceObjective This study investigated change detection of central or marginal interest in images using a change-blindness paradigm with eye tracking. Method Eighty-four drug-naïve adolescents [44 with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)/40 controls with typical development] searched for a change in 36 pairs of original and modified images, with an item of central or marginal interest present or absent, presented in rapid alternation. Collected data were detection rate, response time, and gaze fixation duration, latency, and dispersion data. Results Both groups' change-detection times were similar, with no speed–accuracy trade-off. No between-group differences were found in time to first fixation, fixation duration, or scan paths. Both groups performed better for items of central level of interest. The ADHD group demonstrated greater fixation dispersion in scan paths for central- and marginal-interest items. Conclusion Results suggest the greater gaze dispersion may lead to greater fatigue in tasks that require longer attention duration

Autism and Socially Interactive Agents

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Gaze leading is associated with liking

International audienceGaze plays a pivotal role in human communication, especially for coordinating attention. The ability to guide the gaze orientation of others forms the backbone of joint attention. Recent research has raised the possibility that gaze following behaviors could induce liking. The present study seeks to investigate this hypothesis. We designed two physically different human avatars that could follow the gaze of users via eye-tracking technology. In a preliminary experiment, 20 participants assessed the baseline appeal of the two avatars and confirmed that the avatars differed in this respect. In the main experiment, we compared how 19 participants rated the two avatars in terms of pleasantness, trustworthiness and closeness when the avatars were following their gaze versus when the avatar generated gaze movements autonomously. Although the same avatar as in the preliminary experiment was rated more favorably, the pleasantness attributed to the two avatars increased when they followed the gaze of the participants. This outcome provides evidence that gaze following fosters liking independently of the baseline appeal of the individual