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Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 3/2011

01-03-2011 | Brief Report

Brief Report: How Adolescents with ASD Process Social Information in Complex Scenes. Combining Evidence from Eye Movements and Verbal Descriptions

Auteurs: Megan Freeth, Danielle Ropar, Peter Mitchell, Peter Chapman, Sarah Loher

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders | Uitgave 3/2011

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Abstract

We investigated attention, encoding and processing of social aspects of complex photographic scenes. Twenty-four high-functioning adolescents (aged 11–16) with ASD and 24 typically developing matched control participants viewed and then described a series of scenes, each containing a person. Analyses of eye movements and verbal descriptions provided converging evidence that both groups displayed general interest in the person in each scene but the salience of the person was reduced for the ASD participants. Nevertheless, the verbal descriptions revealed that participants with ASD frequently processed the observed person’s emotion or mental state without prompting. They also often mentioned eye-gaze direction, and there was evidence from eye movements and verbal descriptions that gaze was followed accurately. The combination of evidence from eye movements and verbal descriptions provides a rich insight into the way stimuli are processed overall. The merits of using these methods within the same paradigm are discussed.
Voetnoten
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The data was positively skewed and as no transformations were able to reduce the skew to an acceptable level, a Mann–Whitney test was performed rather than an independent samples t-test.
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
Brief Report: How Adolescents with ASD Process Social Information in Complex Scenes. Combining Evidence from Eye Movements and Verbal Descriptions
Auteurs
Megan Freeth
Danielle Ropar
Peter Mitchell
Peter Chapman
Sarah Loher
Publicatiedatum
01-03-2011
Uitgeverij
Springer US
Gepubliceerd in
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders / Uitgave 3/2011
Print ISSN: 0162-3257
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-3432
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-010-1053-4

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