Viewing preferences of ASD children on paintings

The eye movement patterns of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) based on high-precision, high-sampling-rate professional eye trackers have been widely studied. Still, the equipment used in these studies is expensive and requires skilled operators, and the stimuli are focused on pictures or videos created out of ASD group. We utilized a previously developed eye-tracking device using a tablet, and the double-column paintings with one column from children with ASD, and the other from typically developing (TD) children as stimuli, to investigate the preference of ASD children for the paintings created within their group. This study collected eye movement data from 82 children with ASD and 102 TD children, and an adaptive eye movement classification algorithm was applied to the data aligned by the sampling rate, followed by feature extraction and statistical analysis from the aspects of time, frequency, range, and clustering. Statistical tests indicate that apart from displaying more pronounced non-compliance during the experiment, resulting in a higher data loss rate, children with ASD did not show significant preferences in viewing the two types of paintings compared to TD children. Therefore, we tend to believe that there is no significant difference in preference for ASD and TD paintings showcasing as diptych from the two groups of children using our eye tracking device, and their feature values indicate that they do not have a viewing preference for the paintings.