Delayed disengagement of attention from snakes in children with autism

Tomoko Isomura; Shino Ogawa; Masahiro Shibasaki; Nobuo Masataka

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00241

Delayed disengagement of attention from snakes in children with autism

Tomoko Isomura, Shino Ogawa, Masahiro Shibasaki, Nobuo Masataka^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In the visual search task, it is well known that detection of a tilted straight line as the target among vertical lines that act as distractors is easier than vice versa, and that detection of a snake image as the target among flower images is easier than vice versa. In this study, the degree of such search asymmetry was compared between 18 children with autism and 14 typically developing (TD) children. The results revealed that compared to TD children, children with autism were disproportionally slow when asked to detect the flower among the snake images, suggesting the possibility that they experienced difficulty of disengaging their attention from the snake images. This delayed disengagement would serve itself as an enhanced attentional bias toward snakes in children with autism that is similar to characteristics of visual search performance in anxiety patients.

Original language	English
Article number	00241
Journal	Frontiers in Psychology
Volume	6
Issue number	MAR
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00241
Publication status	Published - 2015 Jan 1
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Attention
Autism
Biological adaptation
Cognitive impairment
Snake fear

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Psychology(all)

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10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00241

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AU - Shibasaki, Masahiro

AU - Masataka, Nobuo

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AB - In the visual search task, it is well known that detection of a tilted straight line as the target among vertical lines that act as distractors is easier than vice versa, and that detection of a snake image as the target among flower images is easier than vice versa. In this study, the degree of such search asymmetry was compared between 18 children with autism and 14 typically developing (TD) children. The results revealed that compared to TD children, children with autism were disproportionally slow when asked to detect the flower among the snake images, suggesting the possibility that they experienced difficulty of disengaging their attention from the snake images. This delayed disengagement would serve itself as an enhanced attentional bias toward snakes in children with autism that is similar to characteristics of visual search performance in anxiety patients.

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Delayed disengagement of attention from snakes in children with autism

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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