Abstract
Previous research has shown attentional biases in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) when processing distressing information. This study examined these attentional patterns as a function of the type of stimulus (scenes and faces) and the stimulus valence (happy, sad, threatening, neutral) using a within-subject design. A dot-probe was applied to ASD (n = 24) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 24). Results showed no differences between the groups for happy and sad stimuli. Critically, ASD children showed an attentional bias toward threatening scenes but away from threatening faces. Thus, the type of stimuli modulated the direction of attentional biases to distressing information in ASD children. These results are discussed in the framework of current theories on cognitive and emotional processing in ASD.
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Notes
As in prior research (e.g., García-Blanco et al. <link rid="bib13">2017ª</link>, b; Marotta et al. 2013) the RTs of individuals in the ASD group were, on average, 300 ms higher than the individuals in the TD group—this difference has been typically explained in terms of hypo-vigilance to new stimuli (Sacrey et al. 2014; Zhao et al. 2016).
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Acknowledgments
Ana García-Blanco was the recipient of a “Juan Rodés” fellowship (JR17/00003) and a grant (PI18/01352) from the Instituto Carlos III (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation). We would like to acknowledge our colleagues Elena Serrano Lozano, Belén Almansa Tomás and Alba Moreno Giménez for their assistance at different stages of the research process.
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This study was funded by a fellowship from a research institute ascribed to a national ministry.
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AGB and MP conceived of the study, participated in its design, coordination, data collection, statistical analyses and supervised manuscript editing. JC, MAV, NY, IM, and MV contributed to conception of the study, recruitment of participants, and data interpretation. RS and FG conceived of the study, participated in data collection and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ghosn, F., Perea, M., Castelló, J. et al. Attentional Patterns to Emotional Faces Versus Scenes in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 49, 1484–1492 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3847-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3847-8