Seeing to hear? Patterns of gaze to speaking faces in children with autism spectrum disorders

Julia R Irwin, Lawrence Brancazio, Julia R Irwin, Lawrence Brancazio

Abstract

Using eye-tracking methodology, gaze to a speaking face was compared in a group of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and a group with typical development (TD). Patterns of gaze were observed under three conditions: audiovisual (AV) speech in auditory noise, visual only speech and an AV non-face, non-speech control. Children with ASD looked less to the face of the speaker and fixated less on the speakers' mouth than TD controls. No differences in gaze were reported for the non-face, non-speech control task. Since the mouth holds much of the articulatory information available on the face, these findings suggest that children with ASD may have reduced access to critical linguistic information. This reduced access to visible articulatory information could be a contributor to the communication and language problems exhibited by children with ASD.

Keywords: audiovisual speech perception; autism spectrum disorders; communication development; eyetracking; lipreading; speech in noise.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Sample images of the speaker (top panels) during a production of /ma/ and the corresponding non-speech figure-eight shapes (lower panels) taken from each time bin. Panels A through E illustrate, respectively, the initial rest position (A), opening prior to the consonant closing gesture (B), the closure for /m/ (C), peak mouth opening for the vowel (D), and the return to rest at the end of the vowel (E).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean time spent on the face region as a percentage of time spent on-screen for each of the time bins and for the ASD group (closed circles) and the TD group (open squares). The left and right panels present results for AV speech in noise and visual-only, respectively. Error bars represent standard errors, calculated independently for each time bin.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Mean time spent on the mouth region (solid lines) and non-focal areas (dashed lines) as a percentage of time spent on the face for each of the time bins and for the ASD group (closed circles) and the TD group (open squares). The left and right panels present results for AV speech in noise and visual-only, respectively. Error bars represent standard errors, calculated independently for each time bin.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Mean time spent on the figure-eight shape region as a percentage of time spent on-screen for each of the time bins and for the ASD group (closed circles) and the TD group (open squares). Error bars represent standard errors, calculated independently for each time bin.

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