Reduced Attentional Capture by Topological Changes in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence for a Perceptual Deficit

Jing Li,1,* Huanjun Xi,2,* Qingqing Zhang,1 Tao Duan,1 Dandan Li,1,3,4 Lei Shi,5 Shuoqiu Gan,2 Hong Li,5 Chunyan Zhu1,3,4,6 1School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, People’s Republic of China; 2Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, Hefei, 230088, People’s Republic of China; 3Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, 230022, People’s Republic of China; 4Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Hefei, Anhui, 230022, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Pediatric Rehabilitation, Anhui Hospital Affiliated to the Pediatric Hospital of Fudan University, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 6Department of Psychology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230601, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Chunyan Zhu, School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 0551-65161249, Email [email protected] Hong Li, Department of Pediatric Rehabilitation, Anhui Hospital Affiliated to the Pediatric Hospital of Fudan University, Hefei, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]: Deficits in the adaptive allocation of attention are considered a feature associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It remains unclear whether the attention of children with ASD can be modulated involuntarily by stimulus-driven processes. Visual processing is believed to initiate with topological perception; thus, we investigate the modulation of attention shifts in children with ASD by altering topological properties. This approach aims to elucidate the mechanism underlying atypical attentional capture in ASD.Methods: Our study recruited 32 ASD children and 30 age-matched typically developing (TD) children. Employing an attentional capture paradigm, we systematically documented the eye movement of both ASD and TD participants in response to stimuli that included non-topological change (nTC), topological change (TC) and abrupt onset.Results: The results suggest that the attention of children with ASD fails to be captured by TC and onset stimuli, and the degree of attentional bias towards TC is significantly correlated with their scores on clinical diagnostic scales.Conclusion: Our results suggest that atypical attentional capture in ASD children is likely a result of impaired processing of topological perception. This finding not only enhances our understanding of their attentional atypicality but also provides insights for intervention practices to improve global processing.Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, attention capture, bottom-up attention, topological perception, eye-tracking