Face Processing And Eye Tracking Skills In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Yıl 2015, , 1 - 23, 15.07.2015

Esmehan Özer Selda Özdemir

https://doi.org/10.20489/intjecse.82386

Öz

In this study, face processing, eye tracking and joint attention skills of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and virtual reality studies have been reveiwed. Current literatüre shows that face processing, eye tracking and joint attention skills and strategies of individuals with ASD are different than the strategies used by typically developing individuals. Difficulties in these areas have been considered to be related to the face discrimination strategies used by the individuals with ASD for face feature detections. Recently, virtual reality studies pioneer the development of intervention programs targeting enhancing social functioning and social cognitive skills of individuals with ASD. Even though the review of the studies indicates that face processing problems of individuals with ASD negatively affect these individuals’ social skills, non-verbal interactions and cognitive skills, these studies will lead to a better understanding of ASD and provide guidance for the development of effective interventions.

 

Anahtar Kelimeler

Autism spectrum disorders; eye tracking; face processing; face scanning; face recognition

Kaynakça

• Adolphs, R., Sears, L., & Piven, J. (2001). Abnormal processing of social information from faces in autism. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 13 (2), 232-240.
• Alvarez, A. (1999). Addressing the Deficit: Developmentally Informed Psychotherapy with Passive Undrawn Children. In A. Alvarez & S. Reid (Ed.), Autism and Personality (pp.49-61). New York: Routledge.
• American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
• Baron-Cohen, S. (1995). Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Baron-Cohen, S. (2003). The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain. New York: Basic Books.
• Batki, A., Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Connellan, J., & Ahluwalia, J. (2000). Is there an innate gaze module? Evidence from human neonates. Infant Behavior and Development, 23 (2), 223-229.
• Bedford, R., Elsabbagh, M., Gliga, T., Pickles, A., Senju, A., Charman, T., & Johnson, M. H. (2012). Precursors to social and communication difficulties in infants at- risk for autism: Gaze following and attentional engagement. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42 (10), 2208-2218.
• Behrmann, M., Avidan, G., Leonard, G. L., Kimchi, R., Luna, B., Humphreys, K., & Minshew, N. (2006). Configural processing in autism and its relationship to face processing. Neuropsychologia, 44 (1), 110-129.
• Bekele, E., Zheng, Z., Swanson, A., Crittendon, J., Warren, Z., & Sarkar, N. (2013). Understanding how adolescents with autism respond to facial expressions in virtual reality environments. Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on, 19 (4), 711-720.
• Best, C. A., Minshew, N. J., & Strauss, M. S. (2010). Gender discrimination of eyes and mouths by individuals with autism. Autism Research, 3 (2), 88-93.
• Boeschoten, M. A., Kenemans, J. L., van Engeland, H., & Kemner, C. (2007). Abnormal spatial frequency processing in high-functioning children with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). Clinical Neurophysiology, 118 (9), 2076–2088.
• Bradshaw, J., Shic, F., & Chawarska, K. (2011). Brief report: Face-specific recognition deficits in young children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41 (10), 1429-1435.
• Bruinsma, Y., Koegel, R. L., & Koegel, L. K. (2004). Joint attention and children with autism: A review of the literature. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 10 (3), 169-175.
• Butterworth, G., & Jarrett, N. (1991). What minds have in common is space: Spatial mechanisms serving joint visual attention in infancy. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9 (1), 55-72.
• Carter, A. S., Gillham, J. E. Sparrow, S.S., & Volkmar, F. R. (1996). Adaptive behavior in autism. Mental Retardation, 5, 945-960.
• Castelli, F. (2005). Understanding emotions from standardized facial expressions in autism and normal development. Autism, 9 (4), 428-449.
• Celani, G., Battacchi, M. W., & Arcidiacono, L. (1999). The understanding of the emotional meaning of facial expressions in people with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29 (1), 57-66.
• Charman, T. (2003). Why is joint attention a pivotal skill in autism? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 358 (1430), 315-324.
• Chawarska, K., Klin, A., Paul, R., Macari, S., & Volkmar, F. (2009). A prospective study of toddlers with ASD: Short-term diagnostic and cognitive outcomes. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50 (10), 1235–1245.
• Chawarska, K., Klin, A., Paul, R., & Volkmar, F. (2007). Autism spectrum disorder in the second year: Stability and change in syndrome expression. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48 (2), 128–138.
• Chawarska K, Klin A., Volkmar F. (2003). Automatic attention cueing through eye movement in 2-year-old children with autism. Child Development,74 (4), 1108-1122.
• Chawarska, K., Macari, S., & Shic, F. (2012). Context modulates attention to social scenes in toddlers with autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53 (8), 903-913.
• Chawarska, K., & Shic, F. (2009). Looking but not seeing: Atypical visual scanning and recognition of faces in 2 and 4-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder.
• Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39 (12), 1663–1672. Chawarska, K., & Volkmar, F. (2007). Impairments in monkey and human face Recognition in 2-year-old toddlers with autism spectrum disorder and
• developmental delay. Developmental Science, 10 (2), 266–279.
• Chawarska, K., Volkmar, F., & Klin, A. (2010). Limited attentional bias for faces in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 67 (2), 178-185.
• Chevallier, C., Kohls, G., Troiani, V., Brodkin, E. S., & Schultz, R. T. (2012). The social motivation theory of autism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16 (4), 231- 239.
• Chen, W. (2012). Multitouch tabletop technology for people with autism spectrum disorder: A review of the literature. Procedia Computer Science, 14, 198-207.
• Coolican, J., Eskes, G. A., McMullen, P. A., & Lecky, E. (2008). Perceptual biases in processing facial identity and emotion. Brain and Cognition, 66, 176–187.
• Critchley, H. D., Daly, E. M., Bullmore, E. T., Williams, S. C., Van Amelsvoort, T., Robertson, D. M., ... & Murphy, D. G. (2000). The functional neuroanatomy of social behaviour changes in cerebral blood flow when people with autistic disorder process facial expressions. Brain, 123 (11), 2203-2212.
• Dalton, K. M., Nacewicz, B. M., Alexander, A. L., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Gaze- fixation, brain activation, and amygdala volume in unaffected siblings of individuals with autism. Biological Psychiatry, 61 (4), 512-520.
• Dalton, K. M., Nacewicz, B. M., Johnstone, T., Schaefer, H. S., Gernsbacher, M. A., Goldsmith, H. H., ... & Davidson, R. J. (2005). Gaze fixation and the neural circuitry of face processing in autism. Nature Neuroscience, 8 (4), 519-526.
• Dawson, G., Toth, K., Abbott, R., Osterling, J., Munson, J., Estes, A., & Liaw, J. (2004). Early social attention impairments in autism: Social orienting, joint attention, and attention to distress. Developmental Psychology, 40 (2), 271.
• Dawson, G., Webb, S. J., Wijsman, E., Schellenberg, G., Estes, A., Munson, J., & Faja, S. (2005). Neurocognitive and electrophysiological evidence of altered face processing in parents of children with autism: Implications for a model of abnormal development of social brain circuitry in autism. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 679–697.
• Deruelle, C., Rondan, C., Gepner, B., & Tardif, C. (2004). Spatial frequency and face processing in children with autism and Asperger syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34, 199–210.
• Dundas, E., Gastgeb, H., & Strauss, M. S. (2012). Left visual field biases when infants process faces: A comparison of infants at high-and low-risk for autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42 (12), 2659-2668.
• Dundas, E. M., Best, C. A., Minshew, N. J., & Strauss, M. S. (2012). A lack of left visual field bias when individuals with autism process faces. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42 (6), 1104-1111.
• Esteves, F., Parra, C., Dimberg, U., & Öhman, A. (1994). Nonconscious associative learning: Pavlovian conditioning of skin conductance responses to masked fear-relevant facial stimuli. Psychophysiology, 31 (4), 375-385.
• Falck-Ytter, T., Fernell, E., Hedvall, Å. L., von Hofsten, C., & Gillberg, C. (2012). Gaze performance in children with autism spectrum disorder when observing communicative actions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42 (10), 2236-2245.
• Farroni, T., Csibra, G., Simion, F., & Johnson, M. H. (2002). Eye contact detection in humans from birth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99 (14), 9602-9605.
• Gillberg, C., & Coleman, M. (2000). The Biology of the Autistic Syndromes. Mac Keith Press: London.
• Golan, O., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2006). Systemizing empathy: Teaching adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism to recognize complex emotions using interactive multimedia. Development and Psychopathology, 18 (2), 591– 617.
• Golan, O., LaCava, P. G., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2007). Assistive Technology as an Aid in Reducing Social Impairment in Autism. In R. L. Gabriels & D. E. Hill (Ed.), Growing up with Autism: Working with School-Age Children and Adolescents (pp. 124-142). New York: Guilford Press.
• Guo, K., Meints, K., Hall, C., Hall, S., & Mills, D. (2009). Left gaze bias in humans, rhesus monkeys and domestic dogs. Animal Cognition, 12, 409–418.
• Hadjikhani, N., Joseph, R. M., Snyder, J., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2006). Anatomical differences in the mirror neuron system and social cognition network in autism. Cerebral Cortex, 16 (9), 1276-1282.
• Harms, M. B., Martin, A., & Wallace, G. L. (2010). Facial emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorders: A review of behavioral and neuroimaging studies. Neuropsychology Review, 20 (3), 290-322.
• Hobson, R. P. (1996). Autism and the Development of the Mind. Manwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Hobson, P. (1993). Autism and the Development of Mind. Hove, U.K.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Jones, W., Carr, K., & Klin, A. (2008). Absence of preferential looking to the eyes of approaching adults predicts level of social disability in 2-year-old toddlers with autism spectrum disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65 (8), 946-954.
• Joseph, R. M., Tanaka, J. (2003). Holistic and part-based face recognition in childrenwith autism. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 44 (4), 529-542.
• Kandalaft, M. R., Didehbani, N., Krawczyk, D. C., Allen, T. T., & Chapman, S. B. (2013). Virtual reality social cognition training for young adults with high- functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43 (1), 34- 44.
• Klin, A., Jones, W., Schultz, R. T., Volkmar, F. R., & Cohen, D. J. (2002). Visual fixation patterns during viewing of naturalistic social situations as predictors of social competence in individuals with autism. Archives of General Psychiatry, 59 (9), 809-816.
• Klin, A., Sparrow, S. S., de Bildt, A., Cicchetti, D. V., Cohen, D. J., & Volkmar, F. R. (1999). A normed study of face recognition in autism and related disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29 (6), 499–508.
• Koegel, R. L., & Koegel, L.K. (1995). Teaching children with autism. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brooke.
• Koegel, L. K., Koegel, R. L., Hurley, C., & Frea, W. D. (1992). Improving social skills and disruptive behavior in children with autism through self-management. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25, 341-353.
• Kuhl, P. K., Williams, K. A., Lacerda, F., Stevens, K. N., & Lindblom, B. (1992). Linguistic experience alters phonetic perception in infants by 6 months of age. Science, 255 (5044), 606-608.
• Lahiri, U., Bekele, E., Dohrmann, E., Warren, Z., & Sarkar, N. (2013). Design of a virtual reality based adaptive response technology for children with autism. Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 21 (1), 55-64.
• Lahiri, U., Warren, Z., & Sarkar, N. (2011). Design of a gaze sensitive virtual social interactive system for children with autism. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering: A Publication of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 19 (4), 443–452.
• Lavie, N., Hirst, A., de Fockert, J. W., & Viding, E. (2004). Load theory of selective attention and cognitive control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133 (3), 339.
• Leppänen, J. M., & Nelson, C. A. (2009). Tuning the developing brain to social signals of emotions. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10 (1), 37-47.
• Liu, S., Quinn, P. C., Wheeler, A., Xiao, N., Ge, L., & Lee, K. (2011). Similarity and difference in the processing of same-and other race faces as revealed by eye tracking in 4- to 9-month-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108, 180–189.
• Luh, K. E. (1998). Effect of inversion on perceptual biases for chimeric faces. Brain and Cognition, 37 (1), 105–108.
• McPartland, J. C., Webb, S. J., Keehn, B., & Dawson, G. (2011). Patterns of visual attention to faces and objects in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41 (2), 148-157.
• Moore, C. & Corkum, V. (1994). Social understanding at the end of the first year of life. Developmental Review, 14, 349-372.
• Moore, D., McGrath, P. & Thorpe, J. (2000). Computer-aided learning for people with autism: A framework for research and development. Innovations in Education and Training International, 37, 218-228.
• Mottron, L., Dawson, M., Soulie`res, I., Hubert, B., & Burack, J. (2006). Enhanced perceptual functioning in autism: An update, and eight principles of autistic perception. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36 (1), 27–43.
• Mundy, P., Sigman, M., Ungerer, J., & Sherman, T. (1986). Defining the social deficits of autism: The contribution of non-verbal communication measures. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27 (5), 657-669.
• Murray D. (1997). Autism and Information Technology: Therapy with Computers. In S. Powell & R. Jordan (Ed.), Autism and Learning: A Guide to Good Practice (pp. 100-117). London: David Fulton Publishers.
• Nation, K., & Penny, S. (2008). Sensitivity to eye gaze in autism: Is it normal? Is it automatic? Is it social? Development and Psychopathology, 20 (1), 79-97.
• Newell, L. C., Best, C. A., Gastgeb, H., Rump, K. M., & Strauss, M. S. (2010). The development of categorization and facial knowledge: Implications for the study of autism. Infant Perception and Cognition: Recent Advances, Emerging Theories, and Future Directions, 223-259.
• Ogai, M., Matsumoto, H., Suzuki, K., Ozawa, F., Fukuda, R., Uchiyama, I., ... & Takei, N. (2003). MRI study of recognition of facial expressions in high-functioning autistic patients. Neuroreport, 14 (4), 559-563.
• Öhman, A. (1993). Fear and anxiety as emotional phenomena: Clinical phenomenology, evolutionary perspectives, and information processing mechanisms. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland (Ed.), Handbook of Emotions (pp. 511–536). New York: Guilford Press.
• Öhman, A., Lundqvist, D., & Esteves, F. (2001). The face in the crowd revisited: A threat advantage with schematic stimuli. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80 (3), 381.
• Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review, 108 (3), 483.
• Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2003). The malicious serpent snakes as a prototypical stimulus for an evolved module of fear. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12 (1), 5-9.
• Pascalis, O., Scott, L. S., Kelly, D. J., Shannon, R. W., Nicholson, E., Coleman, M., & Nelson, C. A. (2005). Plasticity of face processing in infancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102 (14), 5297- 5300.
• Pellicano, E. (2008). Autism: Face-processing clues to inheritance. Current Biology, 18 (17), 748-750.
• Pelphrey, K. A., Sasson, N. J., Reznick, S., Paul, G., Goldman, B. D., & Pevin, J. (2002). Visual scanning of faces in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 32, 249-261.
• Pierce, K., Müller, R. A., Ambrose, J., Allen, G., & Courchesne, E. (2001). Face processing occurs outside the fusiformface area in autism: Evidence from functional MRI. Brain, 124 (10), 2059-2073.
• Plaisted, K., O’Riordan, M., & Baron-Cohen, S. (1998). Enhanced visual search for a conjunctive target in autism: A research note. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 39 (5), 777-783.
• Reznick, J. S., Chawarska, K., & Betts, S. (2000). The development of visual expectations in the first year. Child Development, 71 (5), 1191-1204.
• Rinehart, N. J., Bradshaw, J. L., Moss, S. A., Brereton, A. V., & Tonge, B. J. (2000). Atypical interference of local detail on global processing in high-functioning autism and Asperger’s disorder. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 41 (6), 769–778.
• Rump, K. M., Giovannelli, J. L., Minshew, N. J., & Strauss, M. S. (2009). The development of emotion recognition in individuals with autism. Child Development, 80, 1434-1447.
• Rutherford, M. D., & Towns, A. M. (2008). Scan path differences and similarities during emotion perception in those with and without autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38 (7), 1371-1381.
• Rutishauser, U., Tudusciuc, O., Wang, S., Mamelak, A. N., Ross, I. B., & Adolphs, R. (2013). Single-Neuron Correlates of Atypical Face Processing in Autism. Neuron, 80 (4), 887- 899.
• Samson, A. C., Huber, O., & Gross, J. J. (2012). Emotion regulation in Asperger's syndrome and high-functioning autism. Emotion, 12 (4), 659.
• Santos, A., Chaminade, T., Da Fonseca, D., Silva, C., Rosset, D., & Deruelle, C. (2012). Just another social scene: Evidence for decreased attention to negative social scenes in high-functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42 (9), 1790-1798.
• Scherf, K. S., Behrmann, M., Kimchi, R., & Luna, B. (2009). Emergence of global shape processing continues through adolescence. Child Development, 80, 162–177.
• Schultz, R. T., Grelotti, D. J., Klin, A., Kleinman, J., Van der Gaag, C., Marois, R., & Skudlarski, P. (2003). The role of the fusiform face area in social cognition: Implications for the pathobiology of autism. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 358 (1430), 415-427.
• Sears, L. L., Finn, P. R., & Steinmetz, J. E. (1994). Abnormal classical eye-blink conditioning in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24 (6), 737-751.
• Shah, A., & Frith, U. (1993). Why do autistic individuals show superior performance on the block design task? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34 (8), 1351–1364.
• Smith, V., & Sung, A. (2014). Computer Interventions for ASD. In V. B. Patel, V. R. Preedy, & R. Colin (Ed.), Comprehensive Guide to Autism (pp. 2173-2189). New York: Springer.
• Swettenham, J., Condie, S., Campbell, R., Milne, E., & Coleman, M. (2003). Does the perception of moving eyes trigger reflexive visual orienting in autism? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 358 (1430), 325-334.
• Tomasello, M., Gust, D., & Frost, G. T. (1989). A longitudinal investigation of gestural communication in young chimpanzees. Primates, 30 (1), 35-50.
• Trepagnier, C., Sebrechts, M. M., & Peterson, R. (2002). Atypical face gaze in autism. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 5 (3), 213-217.
• Trepagnier, C. Y., Sebrechts, M. M., Finkelmeyer, A., Stewart, W., Woodford, J., & Coleman, M. (2006). Simulating social interaction to address deficits of autistic spectrum disorder in children. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 9 (2), 213-217.
• Turner-Brown, L. M., Perry, T. D., Dichter, G. S., Bodfish, J. W., & Penn, D. L. (2008). Brief report: Feasibility of social cognition and interaction training for adults with high functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38 (9), 1777-1784.
• Quill, K. A. (2000). Do-Watch-Listen-Say: Social and Communication Intervention for Children with Autism. Baltimore: Brookes.
• Wheeler, A. (2010). The emergence of a left visual field bias in infants’ processing of dynamic faces. Toronto: Master of Arts.
• Yovel, G., & Kanwisher, N. (2005). The neural basis of the behavioral face-inversion effect. Current Biology, 15, 2256–2262.
• Zilbovicius, M., Saitovitch, A., Popa, T., Rechtman, E., Diamandis, L., Chabane, N., & Boddaert, N. (2013). Autism, social cognition and superior temporal sulcus. Open Journal of Psychiatry, 3, 46-55.