Diskuze v psychologii 2020, 2(1):7-12 | DOI: 10.5507/dvp.2020.004

Comparing neurotypical adults differing in their position on the autism spectrum – a qualitative analysis of eye movements

Daniela Halámková
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk university, Brno, Czech Republic

Recent research has brought mixed results about differences in attention allocation measured by eye tracking between autistic and neurotypical individuals. There are several reasons that might be at the core of this confusion, including the given task. We tested 10 neurotypical adults in our experiment: they filled out a questionnaire based on self-evaluation assessing their position on the autistic spectrum. Their eye movements were recorded while viewing several complex visual scenes in two conditions: free viewing and completing a task. We qualitatively compared the visual strategies of two participants scoring on extreme poles of the spectrum in the analysis. Our findings indicate that the task might play a crucial role in research on attention allocation in autism.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorders, eye tracking, attention allocation, task-driven perception

Published: September 22, 2020  Show citation

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Halámková D. Comparing neurotypical adults differing in their position on the autism spectrum – a qualitative analysis of eye movements. Diskuze v psychologii. 2020;2(1):7-12. doi: 10.5507/dvp.2020.004.
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