表情信息特征变化对自闭症儿童面孔视觉扫描的影响

Influence of Changing Expression Information Characteristics on Facial Visual Scanning of Autistic Children

实验以眼动追踪技术为手段,考察自闭症儿童对不同信息特征表情图片的视觉扫描特征,探讨自闭症表情加工的机制。结果发现:(1)看真人表情时,自闭症儿童对高兴、悲伤的整脸扫描时间无显著差异,均高于愤怒和恐惧,对愤怒的整脸扫描时间高于恐惧;(2)看真人表情时自闭症儿童对高兴、悲伤表情的眼睛区域和嘴巴区域扫描时间无差异,对恐惧和愤怒的嘴巴区域扫描时间显著多于眼睛区域;(3)信息特征削弱对自闭症儿童面孔表情视觉扫描产生了影响,随着削弱程度的增加,自闭症儿童对表情图片的嘴巴区域扫描时间增加,对眼睛区域的扫描时间减少。根据实验结果,认为自闭症儿童对表情的加工主要受到表情信息特征的影响,随着信息特征的变化,会对视觉注意进行调整,以获得对表情的充分加工。

Qiu Tianlong, Du Xiaoxin, Cai Yonggang, Zhang Weifeng, Zhang Lei （ 1 Key Laboratory of Speech and Hearing Sciences Ministry of Education, Shanghai, 200062 ） （ 2 Department of Special Education, Anshun University, Anshun, 561000） Abstract Previous studies have confirmed that Autism Spectrum Disorders （ASD） have difficulties recognizing emotions from facial expressions. Some scholars have investigated the characteristics of visual scanning and behaviors of ASD individuals and believe that lo- cal processing has taken in the ASD＇s cognitive expression. Other scholars believe that the information characteristics of expression ima- ges can influence the cognitive expression, but corresponding empirical studies are absent. By weakening information characteristics of expression images, visual scanning time of different expression images for 12 - 16 year - old autistic children are investigated, the influ- ence of changing information characteristics of expression images on the visual scanning is explored, and the mechanism of expression processing of autistic children is discussed in detail. Four kinds of expression images （happy, sad, angry, and fear） are processed by the software Photoshop into three effects： black and white facial images, basal highlight and angles lines, with decreasing relation of expression information characteristics. Expression images are presented by the Tobii Studio and the duration is set as five seconds. We collect visual scanning time of expression images by the Tobii T120 eye tracker. The experiment includes two parts ： the first part is to analyze the visual scanning time of the whole face u- sing the repeated measures design of 4 （happy, sad, angry, and fear images） × 3 （characteristic facial expression, information, and weakened information characteristics ） ; and the second part is to analyze the visual scanning time of the eye area and the mouth area u- sing the repeated measures design of 4 （ happy anger, sadness, and fear images） × 3 （characteristic facial expression, information, and weakened information characteristics） × 2 （mouth and eye area）. The experimental results show that： （ 1 ） The whole face scanning times of the four kinds of expression images of autism are differ- ent, the whole face scanning time of happy and sad facial expression has no significant difference （p 〉. 05）, and both higher than that of anger and fear images （p 〈. 01 ）, and the whole face scanning time of angry is higher than that of fear （p 〈. 01 ） ; （2） Differences exist in visual scanning mode of different facial expressions for children with autism, no significant difference of the eye and mouth scan- ning time can be detected for happy and sad facial expression （p 〉. 05）, while the mouth scanning time is quite longer than that for the eye scanning with fear and anger facial expression （p 〈. 01 ） ; （3） the Heap map shows that weakened information characteristics can affect the face expression visual scanning of children with autism. When increasing the weakening degree of facial expression images, the scanning time of mouth increases while that for the eyes decreases. By analyzing the experimental results, conclusions are shown as follows ： （ 1 ） For 12 to 16 year - old children with autism, local processing characteristics do not appear in the visual scanning of happy and sad expression, but they do for anger and fear expression images; （2） Changing expression information characteristics influences the visual scanning of facial expression. When weakening ex- pression information, the visual attention of autistic children are directed more to the mouth area; （3） Children with autism in the ex- pression cognitive process are affected by characteristics of the facial expression information, and they can adjust the visual attention ac- cording to the changes of expression information characteristics to get the full cognitive evaluation of expressions, and show the conscious ability to use information processing strategies.