Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Research Publications

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Author: Abel, Larry × Type: Abstract ×

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    Optimising visual attention in children with autism spectrum disorder: a comparison of fixation distributions viewing singing and speech
    Abel, LA ; Thompson, GA (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, 2017-06-01)
    Purpose : Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at risk of social isolation and limited social development due to difficulties with gaze and visual attention to people. Studies have shown that children with ASD may prefer music to other stimuli. We hypothesised that a short video of a singer would elicit more attention to the performer, particularly to her face, than a video of her reading a story and that the child’s familiarity with the song and story would enhance attention. Methods : 16 children aged 7-10 (14 M, 2 F) with ASD took part. Stimuli were 4 videos 1 minute long. Content was a favourite song or story of the child, along with a song and story which were the same for all children. The performer, her clothing, lighting and sound level were the same across tasks. Props were a pair of drums for the songs and a storybook of similar size for the stories. Eye movements were recorded with an Eyelink 1000; areas of interest (AOIs) were defined for the face, prop and body. 3-way repeated measures ANOVAs were used to examine the proportion of total dwell time, the proportion of total fixations and pupil area for each AOI in each trial. Results : For dwell time proportion, a significant interaction was found for familiarity*AOI (F=7.45, p=.004), with gaze time to the face being increased for familiar trials (Table 1). Similarly, medium*AOI was significant (F=6.01, p=.013), with increased gaze time to the face and body and decreased time to the prop for the songs (Table 2). The same patterns were seen for proportion of fixation counts to the AOIs (familiarity*AOI F=4.97, p =.016; medium*AOI F=10.33, p=.001). For the pupil, only familiarity and AOI were significant; pupils were larger for familiar stimuli (F=16.70, p=.001) and for the face and prop (F=6.8, p=.015), with the body eliciting less dilation. Conclusions : As hypothesised, the videos of singing attracted children's gaze to the performer more than did those of her reading a story. Familiarity with the material being performed also attracted more attention to her face. Familiarity and gaze to the face also increased arousal, as indexed by pupil dilation. Observation by children with ASD of a singer, particularly one performing their favourite songs, may be a useful intervention for improving their social engagement skills.