Shifting visual attention to social and non-social stimuli in Autism Spectrum Disorders

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BackgroundSome studies find that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) experience difficulties in disengaging their attention from one stimulus and shifting to another, but findings are mixed. It is possible that instead of being a domain-general characteristic of ASD, the attentional differences may be affected by participants’ inherent interest in the conceptual content of the stimuli they are shifting from and towards. MethodChildren with ASD (n = 22) and age-matched typically developing (TD) children (n = 22) Children participated in a gap-overlap visual attention paradigm and saccadic reaction time was measured. The central fixation stimulus was a conceptually neutral picture (i.e., a landscape photo) and there were three kinds of peripheral stimuli: social (faces), common objects, and objects that reflect stereotypical circumscribed interests of individuals with ASD (e.g., trains). On overlap trials, the peripheral stimulus appeared while the central fixation remained on the screen, thus fixating the peripheral stimulus required disengaging from the central stimulus and shifting. On gap trials, there was no overlap which minimized the requirement of disengaging prior to shifting. ResultsData from the overlap trials showed that ASD children had more difficulty than TD children in disengaging from the neutral fixation to focus on any peripherally presented stimulus. However, they were quicker to fixate non-social peripheral stimuli that were related to their circumscribed interests compared with either faces or common objects. In contrast, TD children were quicker to fixate faces relative to the other stimuli. ConclusionsThese findings suggest that ASD is characterized by general difficulties in attentional control that affect disengaging, though the strength of these effects depends on children’s inherent interest in the peripheral stimulus.