Experimental Study on the Eye-Tracking of Children with ASD in the Virtual Space of the Aquarium

In this experiment, the study of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the virtual space of the aquarium is conducted using eye-tracking technology. Firstly, two types of aquarium spaces re constructed using SketchUp, and Unity software is used to capture and collect eye-tracking data within the virtual space. Ten children with ASD (age M=9.20, <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\text{SD}=1.69$</tex>) participated in a one-week experiment with a total duration of 2 hours. When collecting and processing data, the FixationCount, TotalFixationDuration, and Average FixationDuration of eye-tracking data are used as indicators. The results show that the eye-tracking fixation count (FC) score of children with ASD in virtual Space <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1(\mathrm{M}=12.00, \text{SD}=10.11)$</tex> is lower than that in virtual Space <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$2(\mathrm{M}=39.80, \text{SD}=29.43)$</tex>, the total fixation duration (TFD) score of children with ASD in virtual Space 1 (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{M}=2221.40$</tex>, SD=1837.27) is lower than that in virtual Space 2 (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{M}=8877.00, \text{SD}=7692.96$</tex>), and the average fixation duration (AFD) score of children with ASD in virtual Space <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1(\mathrm{M}=194.17, \text{SD}=46.12)$</tex> is lower than that in virtual Space <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$2(\mathrm{M}=204.34, \text{SD}=51.45)$</tex>. The eye-tracking indicators of FC and TFD in virtual space are both valid (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{P}&lt;0.05$</tex>). In short, compared with virtual Space 1, virtual Space 2 can better attract the visual attention of children with ASD and is favored by the subjects, which means the subjects have more and longer fixations on virtual Space 2, which has certain positive significance for subsequent skill intervention in virtual space.