Assessment of emotion perception in images of faces by children with varying degrees of autism spectrum disorder with the help of eye tracking
Suggested citation:
Kuznecov AN, Mishanov GA, Volovik MG, et al. [Assessment of emotion perception in images of faces by children with varying degrees of autism spectrum disorder with the help of eye tracking]. Rossiiskii psikhiatricheskii zhurnal [Russian Journal of Psychiatry]. 2022;(3):68-78. Russian
In this original study, eye tracking was used to study the features of eye movements in healthy children and children with autism spectrum disorders when presented with images of a person with various emotional facial expressions. A technique has been developed for quantifying the manifestation of one of the basic signs of social attention – the ability to differentiate emotions. The diagnostic significance of the difference in the time of gaze fixation on the face and on the eye area is shown in the perception of faces with emotions of joy, surprise, sadness and anger in two versions: against a homogeneous background and when a non-social distracting object is added to the image. It is assumed that the use of eye-tracking when presenting images with emotions of sadness and anger helps to identify signs of autism, and with the emotion of joy, it helps to identify subgroups with different severity of its manifestations. The prospects of using the methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of habilitation programs in children with autistic disorders are substantiated.
Keywords autism spectrum disorders; eye tracking; emotions; facial expression; emotion recognition; social attention
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.47877/1560-957Х-2022-10309
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