scholarly journals ADOS-Eye-Tracking: The Archimedean Point of View and Its Absence in Autism Spectrum Conditions

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Max Schaller ◽  
Monica Biscaldi ◽  
Anna Burkhardt ◽  
Christian Fleischhaker ◽  
Michael Herbert ◽  
...  

Face perception and emotion categorization are widely investigated under laboratory conditions that are devoid of real social interaction. Using mobile eye-tracking glasses in a standardized diagnostic setting while applying the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2), we had the opportunity to record gaze behavior of children and adolescents with and without Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASCs) during social interaction. The objective was to investigate differences in eye-gaze behavior between three groups of children and adolescents either (1) with ASC or (2) with unconfirmed diagnosis of ASC or (3) with neurotypical development (NTD) during social interaction with an adult interviewer in a diagnostic standard situation using the ADOS-2. In a case control study, we used mobile eye-tracking glasses in an ecologically valid and highly standardized diagnostic interview to investigate suspected cases of ASC. After completion of the ASC diagnostic gold standard including the ADOS-2, the participants were assigned to two groups based on their diagnosis (ASC vs. non-ASC) and compared with a matched group of neurotypically developed controls. The primary outcome measure is the percentage of total dwell times assessed for different areas of interest (AOI) with regard to the face and body of a diagnostic interviewer and the surrounding space. Overall, 65 children and adolescents within an age range of 8.3–17.9 years were included in the study. The data revealed significant group differences, especially in the central-face area. Previous investigations under laboratory conditions gave preferential attention to the eye region during face perception to describe differences between ASC and NTD. In this study – using an ecologically valid setting within a standard diagnostic procedure – the results indicate that neurotypically developed controls seem to process faces and facial expressions in a holistic manner originating from the central-face region. Conversely, participants on the Autism Spectrum (tAS) seem to avoid the central-face region and show unsystematic gaze behavior, not using the preferred landing position in the central-face region as the Archimedean point of face perception. This study uses a new approach, and it will be important to replicate these preliminary findings in future research.

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuko Ishizaki ◽  
Takahiro Higuchi ◽  
Yoshitoki Yanagimoto ◽  
Hodaka Kobayashi ◽  
Atsushi Noritake ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may experience difficulty adapting to daily life in a preschool or school settings and are likely to develop psychosomatic symptoms. For a better understanding of the difficulties experienced daily by preschool children and adolescents with ASD, this study investigated differences in eye gaze behavior in the classroom environment between children with ASD and those with typical development (TD). Methods The study evaluated 30 children with ASD and 49 children with TD. Participants were presented with images of a human face and a classroom scene. While they gazed at specific regions of visual stimuli, eye tracking with an iView X system was used to evaluate and compare the duration of gaze time between the two groups. Results Compared with preschool children with TD, preschool children with ASD spent less time gazing at the eyes of the human face and the object at which the teacher pointed in the classroom image. Preschool children with TD who had no classroom experience tended to look at the object the teacher pointed at in the classroom image. Conclusion Children with ASD did not look at the human eyes in the facial image or the object pointed at in the classroom image, which may indicate their inability to analyze situations, understand instruction in a classroom, or act appropriately in a group. This suggests that this gaze behavior of children with ASD causes social maladaptation and psychosomatic symptoms. A therapeutic approach that focuses on joint attention is desirable for improving the ability of children with ASD to adapt to their social environment.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhong Zhao ◽  
Haiming Tang ◽  
Xiaobin Zhang ◽  
Xingda Qu ◽  
Jianping Lu

BACKGROUND Abnormal gaze behavior is a prominent feature of the autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous eye tracking studies had participants watch images (i.e., picture, video and webpage), and the application of machine learning (ML) on these data showed promising results in identify ASD individuals. Given the fact that gaze behavior differs in face-to-face interaction from image viewing tasks, no study has investigated whether natural social gaze behavior could accurately identify ASD. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to examine whether and what area of interest (AOI)-based features extracted from the natural social gaze behavior could identify ASD. METHODS Both children with ASD and typical development (TD) were eye-tracked when they were engaged in a face-to-face conversation with an interviewer. Four ML classifiers (support vector machine, SVM; linear discriminant analysis, LDA; decision tree, DT; and random forest, RF) were used to determine the maximum classification accuracy and the corresponding features. RESULTS A maximum classification accuracy of 84.62% were achieved with three classifiers (LDA, DT and RF). Results showed that the mouth, but not the eyes AOI, was a powerful feature in detecting ASD. CONCLUSIONS Natural gaze behavior could be leveraged to identify ASD, suggesting that ASD might be objectively screened with eye tracking technology in everyday social interaction. In addition, the comparison between our and previous findings suggests that eye tracking features that could identify ASD might be culture dependent and context sensitive.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 84-93
Author(s):  
Ahmad Delrobaee ◽  
Mehdi Tehrani-Doost ◽  
Mohammadtaghi Joghataei ◽  
Katayoon Razjouyan ◽  
Anahita Khorrami Benaraki ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia Vehlen ◽  
Ines Spenthof ◽  
Daniel Tönsing ◽  
Markus Heinrichs ◽  
Gregor Domes

AbstractMany eye tracking studies use facial stimuli presented on a display to investigate attentional processing of social stimuli. To introduce a more realistic approach that allows interaction between two real people, we evaluated a new eye tracking setup in three independent studies in terms of data quality, short-term reliability and feasibility. Study 1 measured the robustness, precision and accuracy for calibration stimuli compared to a classical display-based setup. Study 2 used the identical measures with an independent study sample to compare the data quality for a photograph of a face (2D) and the face of the real person (3D). Study 3 evaluated data quality over the course of a real face-to-face conversation and examined the gaze behavior on the facial features of the conversation partner. Study 1 provides evidence that quality indices for the scene-based setup were comparable to those of a classical display-based setup. Average accuracy was better than 0.4° visual angle. Study 2 demonstrates that eye tracking quality is sufficient for 3D stimuli and robust against short interruptions without re-calibration. Study 3 confirms the long-term stability of tracking accuracy during a face-to-face interaction and demonstrates typical gaze patterns for facial features. Thus, the eye tracking setup presented here seems feasible for studying gaze behavior in dyadic face-to-face interactions. Eye tracking data obtained with this setup achieves an accuracy that is sufficient for investigating behavior such as eye contact in social interactions in a range of populations including clinical conditions, such as autism spectrum and social phobia.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuko Ishizaki ◽  
Takahiro Higuchi ◽  
Yoshitoki Yanagimoto ◽  
Hodaka Kobayashi ◽  
Atsushi Noritake ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may experience difficulty adapting to daily life in a preschool or school settings and are likely to develop psychosomatic symptoms. For a better understanding of the difficulties experienced daily by preschool children and adolescents with ASD, this study investigated differences in eye gaze behavior in the classroom environment between children with ASD and those with typical development (TD).Methods: The study evaluated 30 children with ASD and 49 children with TD. Participants were presented with images of a human face and a classroom scene. While they gazed at specific regions of visual stimuli, eye tracking with an iView X system was used to evaluate and compare the duration of gaze time between the two groups.Results: Compared with preschool children with TD, preschool children with ASD spent less time gazing at the eyes of the human face and the object at which the teacher pointed in the classroom image. Preschool children with TD who had no classroom experience tended to look at the object the teacher pointed at in the classroom image.Conclusion: Children with ASD did not look at the human eyes in the facial image or the object pointed at in the classroom image, which may indicate their inability to analyze situations, understand instruction in a classroom, or act appropriately in a group. This suggests that this gaze behavior of children with ASD causes social maladaptation and psychosomatic symptoms. A therapeutic approach that focuses on joint attention is desirable for improving the ability of children with ASD to adapt to their social environment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 104 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-81
Author(s):  
Maximilian Krug

Narrating is a crucial activity in theatre rehearsals. Through this activity, narratives are performed, expanded, reinterpreted, or even completely improvised. The communicative practices used by theatre professionals to develop a play as a theatrical narrative have rarely been researched, both in linguistics and theatre studies. Therefore, this paper addresses how actors, directors, and other members of a theatre production collectively develop monologues as self-contained narratives within a play. The research focuses on how narrators and listeners, as an interactional ensemble, use multimodal actions to realize such monologues. Surprisingly, the co-narrators don’t appear to imagine their future audience but construct the narrations in situ with and for the present members. This observation especially becomes evident when mobile eye-tracking glasses measure the co-narrators’ gaze behavior. It shows that members of a theatre rehearsal perform different activities (e. g., improvising, reading, prompting, instructing, discussing, monitoring) with regard to local interactional requirements. This paper illustrates the procedures with which theatre-makers produce monologues as multimodal narratives and highlights the differences that distinguish such narratives in theatre from spontaneous everyday storytellings.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document