Prioritization of the processing of threatening stimuli induces deleterious effects on task performance. However, emotion evoked by viewing images of snakes exerts a facilitating effect upon making judgments of their color in neurotypical adults and schoolchildren. We attempted to confirm this in school and preschool children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Forty French children participated and corresponded to two age groups: a group of schoolchildren and a group of preschool children, each group including 10 children with typical development and 10 children with ASD. Each participant was exposed to 120 trials composed of 20 photographs of snakes and 20 photographs of flowers, each of which appeared 3 times (in red, green and blue). Participants were asked to indicate the color of each image as quickly as possible via key-press. A three-way analysis of variance test for reaction time (RT) considering image type (IMAGE), participant group (PARTICIPANT), and age (AGE) as main effects and its interaction terms was performed for each subject. When the reaction time required to respond to presented stimuli was measured, schoolchildren tended to respond faster when stimuli were snake images than when stimuli were flower images whether the children had or did not have ASD. For the 5-to-6-year-old preschool participants, the difference between reaction time for the color-naming of snake images and flower images was ambiguous overall. There were possible odd color-specific effects in children with ASD when images were presented to the children in green. Implications of the findings are argued with respect to active avoidance or attraction as one of the behavioral characteristics commonly noted in children with ASD.

中文翻译：

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通过观察患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童的蛇来增强认知处理。初步研究


优先处理威胁性刺激会对任务表现产生有害影响。然而，观看蛇的图像所引发的情绪对神经正常的成年人和学童对其颜色的判断发挥了促进作用。我们试图在患有和不患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 的学校和学龄前儿童中证实这一点。 40名法国儿童参加，分别对应两个年龄组：一组学龄儿童和一组学龄前儿童，每组包括10名典型发育儿童和10名自闭症谱系障碍儿童。每位参与者接受了 120 次试验，其中包括 20 张蛇的照片和 20 张花的照片，每张照片出现 3 次（红、绿、蓝）。参与者被要求通过按键尽快指出每张图像的颜色。对每个受试者进行反应时间 (RT) 方差检验的三向分析，考虑图像类型 (IMAGE)、参与者组 (PARTICIPANT) 和年龄 (AGE) 作为主效应及其交互项。当测量对呈现的刺激做出反应所需的反应时间时，无论是否患有自闭症谱系障碍，学童在蛇图像刺激时的反应往往比花图像刺激时反应更快。对于5至6岁的学龄前儿童来说，蛇图像和花图像的颜色命名的反应时间总体上是不明确的。当向患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童呈现绿色图像时，可能会出现奇怪的颜色特异性效果。研究结果的意义在于，主动回避或吸引是自闭症儿童中常见的行为特征之一。