孤独症谱系障碍患者对种族情境中本异族面孔的眼动模式

本研究采用眼动技术探讨孤独症谱系障碍(ASD)患者对背景中的本异族面孔的加工特点。研究采用2（组别）×2（面孔种族）×3（背景）的混合设计，让16名16-25岁的ASD患者和17名生理年龄匹配的正常人完成变化检测任务，并记录他们的眼动。结果显示：与正常人相比，ASD患者的面孔辨别力更低；他们的眼动呈现更多的面孔-背景眼跳和更多的上下半脸眼跳；两组被试的上下半脸眼跳的次数受到面孔种族以及面孔和背景是否一致的影响。结论：在行为指标上，正常人出现了本族效应，而ASD患者没有出现本族效应；在眼动上，ASD患者呈现与正常人相似的面孔注视时间，但比正常人呈现更多的眼跳。面孔的背景影响了面孔辨别力以及上下半脸眼跳轨迹。

Autism spectrum disorder individuals' processing of own- and other-race faces in ethnic scene backgrounds

Face processing has been widely explored in the studies on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Atypical face processing is one of the serious social cognitive deficits among individuals with ASD. Numerous behavioral studies have found that ASD individuals have profound impairments in face recognition and discrimination. The existing studies using eye tracking techniques have consistently found that ASD children and adults showed reduced visual attention to faces (especially the eye region) than their typically developing (TD) counterparts. Previous studies on face processing in individuals with ASD mostly used human faces from the same racial group as participants. It is well established that individuals they recognize and discriminate own-race faces more accurately than faces from another racial group. Differential processing of own- and other-race faces has been consistently found in the typical population across ages and races. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether atypical face scanning patterns in individuals with ASD，if they indeed existed，would be generalized to faces of other races，and how backgrounds affect the processing of own- and other-race faces in individuals with ASD. Sixteen 16- to 25-year-old adolescents and young adults with ASD and 17 healthy controls (matched with their chronological ages) participated in the current study. The current study used the change-detection paradigm，which asked participants to judge whether a face (own- or other-race) was identical or different from the previous face (always the same race with the target face). Faces were presented in Chinese，Western or neutral backgrounds. Participants’ behavioral responses were recorded by the computer，and their eye movements were tracked by an eye tracker during the whole experiment. We conducted 2（Group）× 2（Face Race）× 3（Background）mixed-design ANOVA，with behavioral responses and various eye movement indices，including the fixation durations and saccade paths, as dependent variables. Results showed that: (a) for behavioral performance，d’ for ASD individuals was significantly poorer than controls；(b) for eye movements，ASD individuals scanned between upper and lower parts of the face more often than controls；(c) the saccade paths between the upper and lower parts was affected by the race consistency between faces and background；(d) ASD individuals’ d’ for own-race faces correlated with fixation durations at the background. In conclusion，individuals with ASD display specific processing patterns，in both behavioral performance and eye movements；ASD individuals showed greater interests toward other-race faces compared to own-race faces；the background influenced the face processing of both ASD and TD groups.