title: Investigating gaze of children with ASD in naturalistic settings.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Visual behavior is known to be atypical in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Monitor-based eye-tracking studies have measured several of these atypicalities in individuals with Autism. While atypical behaviors are known to be accentuated during natural interactions, few studies have been made on gaze behavior in natural interactions. In this study we focused on i) whether the findings done in laboratory settings are also visible in a naturalistic interaction; ii) whether new atypical elements appear when studying visual behavior across the whole field of view.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Ten children with ASD and ten typically developing children participated in a dyadic interaction with an experimenter administering items from the Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS). The children wore a novel head-mounted eye-tracker, measuring gaze direction and presence of faces across the child's field of view. The analysis of gaze episodes to faces revealed that children with ASD looked significantly less and for shorter lapses of time at the experimenter. The analysis of gaze patterns across the child's field of view revealed that children with ASD looked downwards and made more extensive use of their lateral field of view when exploring the environment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The data gathered in naturalistic settings confirm findings previously obtained only in monitor-based studies. Moreover, the study allowed to observe a generalized strategy of lateral gaze in children with ASD when they were looking at the objects in their environment.
authors.affiliation: Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory, Ecole Polytéchnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. basilio.noris@epfl.ch
authors.forename: Basilio
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Noris
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nadel
authors.forename: Mandy
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barker
authors.forename: Nouchine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hadjikhani
authors.forename: Aude
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Billard
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive; D002675:Child, Preschool; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements / Q000295:instrumentation; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014794:Visual Fields