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document
Reflexive orienting in response to eye gaze and an arrow in children with and without autism . BACKGROUND This study investigated whether another person 's social attention , specifically the direction of their eye gaze , and a non-social directional cue , an arrow , triggered reflexive orienting in children with and without autism in an experimental situation . METHODS Children with autism and typically developed children participated in one of two experiments . Both experiments involved the localization of a target that appeared to the left or right of the fixation point . Before the target appeared , the participant 's attention was cued to the left or right by either an arrow or the direction of eye gaze on a computerized face . RESULTS Children with autism were slower to respond , which suggests a slight difference in the general cognitive ability of the groups . In Experiment 1 , although the participants were instructed to disregard the cue and the target was correctly cued in only 50 % of the trials , both groups of children responded significantly faster to cued targets than to uncued targets , regardless of the cue . In Experiment 2 , children were instructed to attend to the direction opposite that of the cues and the target was correctly cued in only 20 % of the trials . Typically developed children located targets cued by eye gaze more quickly , while the arrow cue did not trigger such reflexive orienting in these children . However , both social and non-social cues shifted attention to the cued location in children with autism . CONCLUSION These results indicate that eye gaze attracted attention more effectively than the arrow in typically developed children , while children with autism shifted their attention equally in response to eye gaze and arrow direction , failing to show preferential sensitivity to the social cue . Difficulty in shifting controlled attention to the instructed side was also found in children with autism .
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Intervention_Physical
arrow
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Intervention_Physical
localization of a target
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Intervention_Physical
arrow
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Intervention_Physical
direction of eye gaze on a computerized face
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Outcome_Mental
attention
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Outcome_Mental
reflexive orienting
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Outcome_Mental
slower to respond
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Outcome_Mental
cognitive ability
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Outcome_Mental
responded
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Outcome_Mental
located targets cued by eye gaze
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Outcome_Mental
reflexive orienting
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Outcome_Mental
attention
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Outcome_Mental
attention
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Outcome_Mental
sensitivity
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Outcome_Mental
attention
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Participant_Age
children
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Participant_Condition
with and without autism