Abstract
Typically developing (TD) children use social cues (e.g. gestural joint attention, observations of facial expression, gaze etc.) to learn about the world. In contrast, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have deficits in joint attention and impaired social skills. Therefore, attentional processes that are under the guidance of social referencing cues should be better developed in TD versus ASD children. We employed the “change blindness” paradigm to compare how the presence, absence, or specific context of different types of social cues in a scene affect TD children, children with ASD, and typical adults in visually identifying change. Forty adults and forty children (22 high-functioning ASDs, 18 TDs) participated. Depending on the presence/absence and nature of the social cues in the scene, change was categorized into one of six conditions: an actor's facial expression or gaze, an object that an actor overtly pointed to or gazed at, an object connected with an actor in the scene, an object unconnected with any actors, an object while an actor pointed to a different, unchanging object, or an object in a scene containing no actors. Percent correct, response time, and inverse efficiency were measured. No significant differences were observed between children with and without autism. Children with autism use relevant social cues while searching a scene just as typical children do. Children (with and/or without autism) were significantly worse than adults in identifying change when an actor pointed to an unchanging object, or when an object changed, whether or not it was connected with an actor. Children were not worse than adults when no actors were present in the scene, or when an actor in the scene pointed to the change. Our findings suggest that compared with adults, children are over-reliant on social cues over other cues. Social cues “capture” the child's attention.
The research on which this paper is based was supported in part by a grant to Bhavin R. Sheth from Autism Speaks/National Alliance for Autism Research, by a grant to Katherine A. Loveland from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P01 HD035471) and by a grant to Deborah A. Pearson from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH072263).