What is the effect of stimulus complexity on attention to repeating and changing information in autism?
What is the effect of stimulus complexity on attention to repeating and changing information in autism?
Slower habituation to repeating stimuli characterises Autism, but it is not known whether this is driven by difficulties with information processing or an attentional bias towards sameness. We conducted eye-tracking and presented looming geometrical shapes, clocks with moving arms and smiling faces, as two separate streams of stimuli (one repeating and one changing), to 7–15 years old children and adolescents (n = 103) with Autism, ADHD or co-occurring Autism+ADHD, and neurotypical children (Study-1); and to neurotypical children (n = 64) with varying levels of autistic traits (Study-2). Across both studies, autistic features were associated with longer looks to the repeating stimulus, and shorter looks to the changing stimulus, but only for more complex stimuli, indicating greater difficulty in processing complex or unpredictable information.
Autism, Eye-tracking, Habituation, Information foraging, Autistic traits
600-616
Arora, Iti
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Bellato, Alessio
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Gliga, Teodora
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Ropar, Danielle
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Kochhar, Puja
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Hollis, Chris
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Groom, Madeleine
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February 2022
Arora, Iti
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Bellato, Alessio
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Gliga, Teodora
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Ropar, Danielle
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Kochhar, Puja
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Hollis, Chris
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Groom, Madeleine
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Arora, Iti, Bellato, Alessio, Gliga, Teodora, Ropar, Danielle, Kochhar, Puja, Hollis, Chris and Groom, Madeleine
(2022)
What is the effect of stimulus complexity on attention to repeating and changing information in autism?
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 52 (2), .
(doi:10.1007/s10803-021-04961-6).
Abstract
Slower habituation to repeating stimuli characterises Autism, but it is not known whether this is driven by difficulties with information processing or an attentional bias towards sameness. We conducted eye-tracking and presented looming geometrical shapes, clocks with moving arms and smiling faces, as two separate streams of stimuli (one repeating and one changing), to 7–15 years old children and adolescents (n = 103) with Autism, ADHD or co-occurring Autism+ADHD, and neurotypical children (Study-1); and to neurotypical children (n = 64) with varying levels of autistic traits (Study-2). Across both studies, autistic features were associated with longer looks to the repeating stimulus, and shorter looks to the changing stimulus, but only for more complex stimuli, indicating greater difficulty in processing complex or unpredictable information.
Text
s10803-021-04961-6
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Accepted/In Press date: 3 March 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 19 March 2021
Published date: February 2022
Keywords:
Autism, Eye-tracking, Habituation, Information foraging, Autistic traits
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Local EPrints ID: 481987
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/481987
ISSN: 0162-3257
PURE UUID: 707024d8-360a-4979-adf6-d55624b5d2e1
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Date deposited: 14 Sep 2023 16:48
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 04:15
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Contributors
Author:
Iti Arora
Author:
Alessio Bellato
Author:
Teodora Gliga
Author:
Danielle Ropar
Author:
Puja Kochhar
Author:
Chris Hollis
Author:
Madeleine Groom
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