自閉症児の表情認知に関する研究

抄録

This study examined the features of responses to facial stimuli in autistic children. Subjects were five normal children (mean CA=8:2), and seven autistic children (mean CA=9:4; mean MA=3:5). Facial stimuli were divided into five kinds: joy, anger, sadness, comfort, and neutral. Each was drawn in both a schematic and a concrete pattern, respectively. In each pattern, two different stimuli were presented in pair with a ten-second duration, and gaze behaviors to the stimuli were video-tape recorded according to the corneal reflection method. The main results were as follows;(1) Normal children looked longer at the pleasant facial stimuli than the unpleasant ones for both a schematic and a concrete pattern. Autistic children also showed the same tendency for a concrete pattern.(2) Normal children looked at the facial stimuli with a definite strategy; they showed an “orienting response” to either stimulus at first, then “compared” them, and lastly “prefered” one of them. However, autistic children showed no such a systematic process.