自閉症類群障礙症兒童之臉部情緒辨識

Abstract

臉部情緒辨識為孩童發展社交互動的一項重要先備技巧。根據文獻回顧，自閉症孩童在臉部情緒辨識上易出現困難，此缺陷可能受到他們非典型的視覺處理模式影響。目前已有實證支持臉部情緒辨識以及自閉症視覺處理的關聯，但過往研究中所選用之視覺處理操作型定義尚不完善，研究結果解釋可能有偏差。有鑑於此，本研究完整回顧過往自閉症視覺處理相關理論——弱中心聚合、增強知覺功能、局部優先，用以探討其對自閉症孩童臉部情緒辨識的影響。此外，為了解自閉症孩童臉部情緒辨識困難是否體現於日常社交表現，本研究亦嘗試建立臉部情緒辨識與社會適應功能之間的關聯。 本研究預計招收7至12歲之自閉症及典型發展孩童。孩童將優先接受臺灣版自閉症行為檢核表以區辨有無自閉特質，並以瑞文氏推理測驗排除認知障礙者。納入之受試者將接著進行臉部情緒辨識測驗及文蘭適應行為量表。在臉部情緒辨識測驗中，孩童將接受四種測驗情境（無策略引導之無遮罩、有策略引導之無遮罩、口罩遮罩、墨鏡遮罩）以建立不同情境下之臉部情緒辨識表現。該結果將用來釐清自閉症與典型發展孩童在臉部情緒辨識上的差異，以及自閉症視覺處理型態對臉部情緒辨識的影響。文蘭適應行為量表將用以檢驗臉部情緒辨識以及社會適應功能間的關聯。整個實驗流程約1.5小時完成。 共有25位自閉症孩童及24位正常發展孩童參與本研究。臉部情緒辨識測驗結果顯示，自閉症組相較典型發展組在無遮罩的情境下有較低的正確率；自閉症組本身在無遮罩相較遮罩情境有較高的正確率；自閉症組本身在無遮罩情境中的兩個情境以及有遮罩情境中的兩個情境都沒有表現上的差異。本研究並未發現任何臉部情緒辨識測驗結果以及文蘭適應行為量表分數間的關聯。 本研究結果證實視覺處理型態會影響自閉症孩童之臉部情緒辨識表現。與自閉症之弱中心聚合知覺特徵吻合，自閉症孩童能夠留意多方臉部五官特徵，但較難以將資訊有效整合以推論他人情緒。增強知覺功能以及局部優先之視覺特徵似乎無法用來解釋自閉症在辨識臉部情緒的困難。本研究量測之臉部情緒辨識表現似乎無法類推至孩童社交適應功能，顯示社交適應功能可能無法從此類認知需求較少的能力所反映。關於未來研究方向，建議能以眼動追蹤技術來更加釐清自閉症孩童之視覺處理特徵對臉部情緒辨識的影響，亦建議多探討臉部情緒辨識以及社交表現之間的中介變項。

Emotion recognition is a fundamental skill for successful social interaction. Based on the literature review, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty in recognizing others’ facial expressions, which may be explained by their atypical visual processing styles. Few studies have examined the relationships between facial emotion recognition (FER) with visual processing, yet visual processing has not been comprehensively conceptualized. Given the knowledge gap, the present study aims to investigate the influence of visual processing in terms of weak central coherence (WCC), enhanced perceptual functioning (EPF), and local precedence on FER in children with ASD. Moreover, the relationships between FER with social adaptive functions were established to generalize the FER to daily social performance. ASD and typically developmental (TD) children aged 7 to 12 years old were recruited. Participants were screened for ASD traits using the Autism Behavioral Checklist - Taiwan Version (ABCT), and for intellectual disabilities using Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM). The included participants continuously performed the Facial Emotion Recognition Task (FER Task) and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale 3 (VABS). In the FER Task, three conditions (uncovered without guide, uncovered with guide, covered-mask, and covered-colored-glasses) are designed to capture the FER performance. The results could explain the group difference in FER and the effect of visual processing on FER in children with ASD. The VABS was used for investigating the relationships between FER with social adaptive functions. The whole experimental session took 1.5 hours approximately. A total of 25 children with ASD and 24 children with TD participated in this study. The results of the FER task revealed that the ASD group had lower accuracies in the uncovered conditions compared to the TD group. However, within the ASD group, the accuracies in the uncovered conditions were higher than those in the covered conditions, and no differences in accuracies were found within the uncovered and covered conditions. No significant relationships between the FER task and the VABS scores were observed in this study. This study suggests that visual processing has an impact on FER performance in children with ASD. These children have difficulties integrating information from facial properties as efficiently as age-matched TD individuals, which is consistent with the perceptual dysfunction in ASD according to the WCC theory. The EPF and local precedence theories do not appear to explain the FER difficulties in children with ASD. No significant relationships were found between the FER and the VABS scores, indicating that social performance may not be influenced by these abilities without high cognitive demands. The issue of FER in children with ASD could be better understood by employing eye-tracking techniques and exploring potential mediators between FER and social performance in future research.