An Experimental Study On The Attention Of Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorders To Social Cue

People with Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD)have certain deficits in social information processing,specifically manifested as avoidance of eye fixation.However,if the eyes are used as a cue containing social information,ASD individuals also have the prompt role of social cues,that is,when the target appears in the position indicated by the cue,the subjects respond faster to the target.However,compared with Typically Developing(TD)individuals,ASD individuals have stronger processing ability for non-social cues.However,compared with TD individuals,ASD individuals may have weaker processing ability for social and non-social cues.TD individuals can produce cueing effects in both social and non-social conditions,but the cueing effect of social cues is generally more stable than that of non-social cues,and the number of social cues may regulate the size of the cueing effect.Therefore,it has not been concluded that whether adult individuals with ASD and TD will produce differences between social and nonsocial cues,especially when the number of cues is larger.Starting from the field of social attention,this study adapts the paradigm of fixative cueing to explore the differences and influencing factors of the cueing effects of ASD and TD individuals in the face of multiple cues.Experiment 1 adopted a four-factor mixed experimental design of 2(subject type: ASD/ TD)×2(prompt type: eye/ arrow)×2(prompt quantity: 1 / 3)×2(prompt validity: valid/ invalid),in which the subject type was the inter-group variable,prompt type,number and validity was the intra-group variable,and the dependent variable was the reaction time.The results of experiment 1 showed that the main effect of cue validity was significant,and the quad interaction of cue type,number,validity and subject type was significant.Further analysis showed that under the condition of social cues,the cue cue effect only appeared in group TD under three cues,while that in group ASD only appeared in one cue,and the influence of cue number on the two groups was different.In the non-social cue condition,there was no prompt effect,and the difference between the two groups was not significant.In experiment 2,the relative saliency of the two kinds of information was adjusted to make the arrow relatively clearer and the face relatively blurred,but the results showed that the relative saliency adjustment only enhanced the cuing effect of the non-social cues in group TD.This study showed that the number of cueing had different effects on the social cueing effect of ASD and TD individuals.TD individuals tended to follow the majority,while ASD individuals tended to follow the minority.The relative salience of the arrow information increased,and the cuing effect increased in TD individuals,but did not show a similar trend in ASD individuals.This study is helpful for future researchers to further explore the differences in cueing and influencing factors of individuals with ASD and TD,and provide data support for exploring and developing intervention pathways for adults with ASD.