Assessing the Utility of a Virtual Environment for Enhancing Facial Affect Recognition in Adolescents with Autism

Autor/inn/en	Bekele, Esubalew; Crittendon, Julie; Zheng, Zhi; Swanson, Amy; Weitlauf, Amy; Warren, Zachary; Sarkar, Nilanjan
Titel	Assessing the Utility of a Virtual Environment for Enhancing Facial Affect Recognition in Adolescents with Autism
Quelle	In: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44 (2014) 7, S.1641-1650 (10 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0162-3257
DOI	10.1007/s10803-014-2035-8
Schlagwörter	Adolescents; Autism; Pervasive Developmental Disorders; Recognition (Psychology); Human Body; Nonverbal Communication; Visual Stimuli; Eye Movements; Cognitive Processes; Visual Perception; Hypothesis Testing; Control Groups; Computer Simulation + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Adolescent; Adolescence; Adoleszenz; Jugend; Jugendalter; Jugendlicher; Autismus; Recognition; Wiedererkennen; Menschlicher Körper; Non-verbal communication; Nonverbale Kommunikation; Augenbewegung; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Visuelle Wahrnehmung; Hypothesenprüfung; Hypothesentest; Computergrafik; Computersimulation
Abstract	Teenagers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and age-matched controls participated in a dynamic facial affect recognition task within a virtual reality (VR) environment. Participants identified the emotion of a facial expression displayed at varied levels of intensity by a computer generated avatar. The system assessed performance (i.e., accuracy, confidence ratings, response latency, and stimulus discrimination) as well as how participants used their gaze to process facial information using an eye tracker. Participants in both groups were similarly accurate at basic facial affect recognition at varied levels of intensity. Despite similar performance characteristics, ASD participants endorsed lower confidence in their responses and substantial variation in gaze patterns in absence of perceptual discrimination deficits. These results add support to the hypothesis that deficits in emotion and face recognition for individuals with ASD are related to fundamental differences in information processing. We discuss implications of this finding in a VR environment with regards to potential future applications and paradigms targeting not just enhanced performance, but enhanced social information processing within intelligent systems capable of adaptation to individual processing differences. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10