Modulation of attention by socio-emotional scenes in children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

BackgroundAbnormal attentional processes to socially relevant information may underlie social impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). To examine how these processes are modulated by the emotional salience of the stimuli, we studied the attentional biases to social scenes (happy, sad, and threatening) in ASD children. MethodAn emotional dot-probe task was applied to children (from 6 to 12 years old) with Autism Spectrum Disorder without additional language and/or intellectual impairments (ASD; n=25) and age/sex-matched controls (n=25). ResultsASD children showed an attentional bias toward threatening scenes while typically developing children tended to direct their attention toward sad scenes. There were no differences between groups for happy scenes. ConclusionsThreatening situations captured greater attention in ASD individuals than in the control participants. Thus, abnormal attention to emotionally relevant situations may negatively affect the ability of ASD children to adapt cognitively and emotionally, particularly in threatening situations.