Typical development of socio-communicative skills relies on keen observation of others. It thus follows that decreased social attention negatively impacts the subsequent development of socio-communicative abilities in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In addition, studies indicate that social attention is modulated by context and that greater social difficulties are observed in more socially demanding situations. Our study aims to investigate the effect of social complexity on visual exploration of others’ actions in preschoolers. To investigate the impact of social complexity, we used an eye-tracking paradigm with 26 typically developing preschoolers (TD, age = 3.60 ± 1.55) and 37 preschoolers with ASD (age = 3.55 ± 1.21). Participants were shown videos of two children engaging in socially simple play (parallel) versus socially complex play (interactive). We subsequently quantified the time spent and fixation duration on faces, objects, bodies, as well as the background and the number of spontaneous gaze shifts between socially relevant areas of interest. In the ASD group, we observed decreased time spent on faces. Social complexity (interactive play) elicited changes in visual exploration patterns in both groups. From the parallel to the interactive condition, we observed a shift towards socially relevant parts of the scene, a decrease in fixation duration, as well as an increase in spontaneous gaze shifts between faces and objects though there were fewer in the ASD group. Our results need to be interpreted cautiously due to relatively small sample sizes and may be relevant to male preschoolers, given our male-only sample and reported phenotypic differences between males and females. Our results suggest that similar to TD children, though to a lesser extent, visual exploration patterns in ASD are modulated by context. Children with ASD that were less sensitive to context modulation showed decreased socio-communicative skills or higher levels of symptoms. Our findings support using naturalistic designs to capture socio-communicative deficits in ASD.

中文翻译：

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社会复杂性对自闭症谱系障碍学龄前儿童视觉观察他人行为的影响

社会交往能力的典型发展取决于对他人的敏锐观察。因此，随之而来的是，自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的社交注意力下降对社交能力的后续发展产生负面影响。此外，研究表明，社会关注是由情境调节的，并且在对社会要求更高的情况下观察到更大的社会困难。我们的研究旨在调查社会复杂性对学龄前儿童其他行为的视觉探索的影响。为了研究社会复杂性的影响，我们使用了一个眼动追踪范式，对26名典型的发展中学龄前儿童（TD，年龄= 3.60±1.55）和37名学龄前儿童进行ASD（年龄= 3.55±1.21）。向参与者展示了两个孩子在进行社交简单游戏（平行）与社交复杂游戏（互动）时的视频。随后，我们量化了在面部，物体，身体以及背景上花费的时间和注视持续时间，以及背景以及与社会相关的感兴趣区域之间的自发凝视转移的次数。在ASD组中，我们观察到花在脸上的时间减少了。社会复杂性（互动游戏）引起了两组视觉探索模式的变化。从平行状态到交互状态，尽管ASD组中较少，但观察到了向场景中与社会相关的部分的转移，注视持续时间的减少以及面部和物体之间自发凝视转移的增加。鉴于我们的样本量相对较小，我们的结果需要谨慎解释，并且可能与男性学龄前儿童有关，因为我们只有男性样本并且报告了男性和女性之间的表型差异。我们的研究结果表明，与TD儿童相似，尽管在较小程度上，ASD中的视觉探索模式受上下文的调节。对情景调节不太敏感的ASD儿童表现出降低的社交能力或较高的症状水平。我们的发现支持使用自然主义的设计来捕捉ASD中的社交障碍。对情景调节不太敏感的ASD儿童表现出降低的社交能力或较高的症状水平。我们的发现支持使用自然主义的设计来捕捉ASD中的社交障碍。对情景调节不太敏感的ASD儿童表现出降低的社交能力或较高的症状水平。我们的发现支持使用自然主义的设计来捕捉ASD中的社交障碍。