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Faces Do Not Capture Special Attention in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Change Blindness Study
Author(s) -
Kikuchi Yukiko,
Senju Atsushi,
Tojo Yoshikuni,
Osanai Hiroo,
Hasegawa Toshikazu
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01342.x
Subject(s) - psychology , autism spectrum disorder , typically developing , autism , developmental psychology , change blindness , change detection , cognitive psychology , cognition , neuroscience , remote sensing , geology
Two experiments investigated attention of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to faces and objects. In both experiments, children (7‐ to 15‐year‐olds) detected the difference between 2 visual scenes. Results in Experiment 1 revealed that typically developing children ( n = 16) detected the change in faces faster than in objects, whereas children with ASD ( n = 16) were equally fast in detecting changes in faces and objects. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 ( n = 16 in children with ASD and 22 in typically developing children), which does not require face recognition skill. Results suggest that children with ASD lack an attentional bias toward others’ faces, which could contribute to their atypical social orienting.