Task 7 Flashcards
What are gaze cueing paradigms?
An adaptation of Posner’s cueing paradigm where an arrow is replaced with face stimulus
Describe the gaze cueing paradigm
- Valid trials – target appears in the location of gaze. Faster reactions
- Invalid trials – target appears in opposite location of gaze
- Neutral phase: target appears on either location
- Reaction times are measured.
- Gaze cues trigger automatic overt orienting responses.
Senju used a gaze cueing paradigm to assess 9 month old indants’ sensitivity to eye and object relations.
What did they find?
9 months old are only sensitive to eye-object relations IF eye contact is present, even when there is lateral head motion. Thus, eye contact (direct gaze) is required for their orientation of attention.
What is dyadic interaction?
Dyadic interaction involves the infant and caregiver. It involves the reciprocation of each other’s affect.
What is triadic interaction?
Triadic interaction involves the infant, caregiver and object/event/location. It is important for language learning.
What is joint attention?
Joint attention is when an individual follows the gaze direction of the other individual; they both look to the same object.
What is shared attention?
Shared attention differs because both individuals look at the same object without anyone’s alert to orient to the object, and both are aware of what they are perceiving. This awareness is not present in infants.
The preference for direct gaze (eye contact) is present in the first few months of life. Newborns prefer moving pupils and not static images
At what age do can they ascertain direction of eye gaze in static images?
9 months
Research show that direct gaze is needed for joint attention in infants. Is this the same for children with ASD? Explain
Children with ASD avoid eye contact and are slow in orienting their attention except for HF-ASD. Since they have difficulties in orienting their attention then they have impaired joint attention.
Why is joint attention important? Explain
Joint attention is important for language learning. The parents can use their eye movements to direct the infant to a particular object (refer) and then state the appropriate name of the object. This can also be reversed where infants refer their parents to objects using eye gaze or other gestures (e.g. pointing) and parents can now provided the referrent word.
What are the neural underpinnings of gaze processing?
Superior Temporal Sulcus
What is the function of the Superior Temporal Sulcus?
Gaze processing
Why/how is the superior temporal sulcus different in children with ASD compared to TDC?
They show less activation
When infants with ASD are asked to look at the eye region, they show greater activations in the fusiform gyrus and amygdala. What does this indicate?
This indicates that it is emotionally arousing & maybe stressful to look at the eyes, hence why they avoid it.
When do dyadic and triadic interactions begin?
Dyadic: present from birth but no initiation until 3 months.
Triadic interactions begin at 3 months but there is no initiation by the infant.
