Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Joint Attention Impairment
Conditions
Keywords
Autism spectrum disorder, Joint attention, Eye tracking
Brief summary
To examine whether the spatiotemporal organization of gaze strategies differs between children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children during a staged joint attention interaction, and to identify at which phase differences emerge.
Detailed description
This cross-sectional observational study involved children with ASD and their typically developing (TD) peers freely viewing dynamic social interaction videos. The videos were segmented into four theory-driven phases: Introduction (scene establishment), Joint Attention (mapping another's gaze to an object preference), Intentional Comprehension (inferring the model's intention), and Emotional Feedback (evaluating outcomes that were either congruent or incongruent with the established preference). Participants' eye movements were recorded throughout using a remote eye-tracker.
Interventions
None listed
Sponsors
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
3 Years to 11 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
\- For ASD group: confirmed clinical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. For TD group: Typically developing children without any developmental or neurological disorders. Both groups: Normal or corrected-to-normal vision, no color vision deficiencies, and legal guardian provided written informed consent.
Exclusion criteria
\- Failure to meet the study's group-specific screening cutoffs on the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) Known genetic syndromes, significant hearing loss, or uncorrectable visual impairment
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of Total Fixation Duration on Human Faces during Entire Video | During the full 27-second video presentation | Percentage of total fixation duration on human faces was calculated as (total fixation duration on all face areas of interest / total fixation duration on the entire video) × 100. Fixation was defined as gaze maintained within a 1° visual angle for a minimum of 100 ms. This measure was compared between the ASD and TD groups. |
| Total Fixation Duration on Human Faces during Entire Video | During the full 27-second video presentation | Total fixation duration (in milliseconds) on human faces, calculated as the sum of all fixation durations that fell within face areas of interest (AOIs). This measure was compared between the ASD and TD groups. |
| Percentage of Total Fixation Duration on Human Faces During Phase 4 (Emotional Feedback) by Condition | During seconds 22-27 of the video | Percentage of fixation duration on faces was calculated for the emotional feedback phase separately for Preference-congruent and Preference-incongruent trials. The interaction between Group (ASD vs. TD) and Condition (Congruent vs. Incongruent) was examined. Higher percentages indicate greater allocation of visual attention to faces during emotional feedback. |
| Total Scanpath Length During Entire Video | During the full 27-second video presentation | — |
| Number of Gaze Shifts Between Face and Object Areas of Interest | During the full 27-second video presentation | The number of saccadic gaze shifts that cross between pre-defined face and object areas of interest (AOIs) was counted. This was taken as an index of attentional switching between social and non-social information. |
| Mean Distance of Fixation Points from the Center of the Face Area of Interest | During the full 27-second video presentation | For each fixation, the Euclidean distance (in degrees of visual angle) from its location to the centroid of the pre-defined face AOI was calculated. The mean of these distances across all fixations was then computed. Larger values indicate that gaze tended to fall farther from the faces, reflecting less attention to facial information. |
Countries
China
Outcome results
None listed