Abstract
Slower habituation to repeating stimuli characterises Autism, but it is not known whether this is driven by difficulties with information processing or an attentional bias towards sameness. We conducted eye-tracking and presented looming geometrical shapes, clocks with moving arms and smiling faces, as two separate streams of stimuli (one repeating and one changing), to 7–15 years old children and adolescents (n = 103) with Autism, ADHD or co-occurring Autism+ADHD, and neurotypical children (Study-1); and to neurotypical children (n = 64) with varying levels of autistic traits (Study-2). Across both studies, autistic features were associated with longer looks to the repeating stimulus, and shorter looks to the changing stimulus, but only for more complex stimuli, indicating greater difficulty in processing complex or unpredictable information.
Highlights
Autism Spectrum Disorder affects an estimated 1% of the population in the UK (Laurie & Border, 2020) and is characterised by impairments in social communication and interaction and presence of repetitive and restricted behaviours (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
We set out to identify whether differences in attention to repeating versus changing information in autism are present across stimulus contexts, suggesting a bias away from novelty towards repetition and predictability; or if they are dependent upon stimulus complexity, indicating slower information processing which is exacerbated when stimuli
We aimed to identify whether biases found in our clinical sample of autistic children against attending to changing information when stimuli were more complex are related to autistic traits in a general population sample
Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorder (hereafter referred to as autism) affects an estimated 1% of the population in the UK (Laurie & Border, 2020) and is characterised by impairments in social communication and interaction and presence of repetitive and restricted behaviours (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Accepted models of habituation (Groves & Thompson, 1970) suggest that look durations to a repeating stimulus increase until an internal representation has been formed that matches the stimulus (and the stimulus has been ‘learnt’), after which, look durations decrease until they reach an asymptotic level. Look durations in these paradigms have been reliably linked with information processing and learning, such that higher rates of decrease in look durations (or quicker habituation) are
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