ABSTRACT
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by unusual social communication and interaction. These traits are often targets for intervention, particularly computer-based interventions (CBIs). We examined whether interactive behaviors in children with autism could be influenced by modifying the facial characteristics of computer avatars and how behavior toward avatars compared to that toward video. Participants spoke with a therapist over a modified videoconferencing system that permitted manipulation of her appearance (i.e., using cartoon or more realistic avatars versus video) and motion (i.e., exaggerating or damping facial movements). We measured the participants' speech, gaze, and gestures. In the first study, we found that the appearance complexity of the avatar did not significantly affect any social interaction behaviors. However, the results of the second study suggest that exaggerated facial motion can improve nonverbal social behaviors, such as gaze and gesture. These findings have implications for character design in CBIs for ASD.
Supplemental Material
- American Psychiatric Association. 2000. DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision. American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
- American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition. American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
- Simon Baron-Cohen, Ofer Golan, and Emma Ashwin. 2009. Can emotion recognition be taught to children with autism spectrum conditions? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364, 1535 (2009), 3567--3574.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Renae Beaumont and Kate Sofronoff. 2008. A multi-component social skills intervention for children with Asperger syndrome: The Junior Detective Training Program. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 49, 7 (2008), 743--753.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Armando Bertone, Laurent Mottron, Patricia Jelenic, and Jocelyn Faubert. 2003. Motion perception in autism: A complex issue. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 15, 2 (2003), 218--225. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Armando Bertone, Laurent Mottron, Patricia Jelenic, and Jocelyn Faubert. 2005. Enhanced and diminished visuo-spatial information processing in autism depends on stimulus complexity. Brain 128, 10 (2005), 2430--2441.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Steven M. Boker, Jeffrey F. Cohn, Barry-John Theobald, Iain Matthews, Timothy R. Brick, and Jeffrey R. Spies. 2009. Effects of damping head movement and facial expression in dyadic conversation using real-time facial expression tracking and synthesized avatars. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364, 1535 (2009), 3485--3495.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Alexis Bosseler and Dominic W. Massaro. 2003. Development and evaluation of a computer-animated tutor for vocabulary and language learning in children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 33, 6 (2003), 653--672.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hennie Brugman and Albert Russel. 2004. Annotating Multimedia/Multi-modal resources with ELAN. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Language Resources and Language Evaluation (LREC 2004), F. Ferreira R. Costa M. Lino, M. Xavier and R. Silva (Eds.). European Language Resources Association, Paris.Google Scholar
- Ariane V. S. Buescher, Zuleyha Cidav, Martin Knapp, and David S. Mandell. 2014. Costs of autism spectrum disorders in the United Kingdom and the USA. JAMA Pediatrics 168, 8 (2014), 721--728.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Elizabeth J. Carter and Jennifer Hyde. 2015. Designing autism research for maximum impact. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). ACM, 2801--2804. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Elizabeth J. Carter, Diane L. Williams, Jessica K. Hodgins, and Jill F. Lehman. 2014. Are children with autism more responsive to animated characters? A study of interactions with humans and human-controlled avatars. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 44, 10 (2014), 2475--2485.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Catherine Lord, Susan Risi, Linda Lambrecht, Edwin H. Cook, Bennett L. Leventhal, Pamela C. DiLavore, Andrew Pickles, and Michael Rutter. 2000. The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic: A standard measure of social and communication deficits associated with the spectrum of autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 30, 3 (2000), 205--223.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2014. Prevalence of autism spectrum disorder among children aged 8 years -- Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 11 Sites, USA, 2010. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 63, SS02 (2014), 1--21.Google Scholar
- Shen Hsing A. Chen and Vera Bernard-Opitz. 1993. Comparison of personal and computer-assisted instruction for children with autism. Mental Retardation 31, 6 (1993), 368--376.Google Scholar
- Timothy F. Cootes, Gareth J. Edwards, and Christopher J. Taylor. 2001. Active appearance models. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 23, 6 (2001), 681--685. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Timothy F. Cootes, Gavin V. Wheeler, Kevin N. Walker, and Christopher J. Taylor. 2002. View-based active appearance models. Image and Vision Computing 20, 9 (2002), 657--664.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Doreen Granpeesheh and Dennis R. Dixon and Jonathan Tarbox and Andrew M. Kaplan and Arthur E. Wilke. 2009. The effects of age and treatment intensity on behavioral intervention outcomes for children with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 3, 4 (2009), 1014--1022.Google ScholarCross Ref
- ELAN. 2004. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The Language Archive, Nijmegen, Netherlands. (2004). http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/.Google Scholar
- Sue Fletcher-Watson. 2014. A targeted review of computer-assisted learning for people with autism spectrum disorder: Towards a consistent methodology. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 1, 2 (2014), 87--100.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Uta Frith. Autism: Explaining the Enigma. Oxford, UK.Google Scholar
- Francesca Happe. 1999. Autism: Cognitive deficit or cognitive style? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 3, 6 (1999), 216--222.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Francesca Happe and Uta Frith. 2006. The weak coherence account: Detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36, 1 (2006), 5--25.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jennifer Hyde, Elizabeth J Carter, Sara Kiesler, and Jessica K Hodgins. 2013. Perceptual effects of damped and exaggerated facial motion in animated characters. In 10th IEEE International Conference and Workshops on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG) 2013. IEEE, 1--6.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jennifer Hyde, Elizabeth J. Carter, Sara Kiesler, and Jessica K. Hodgins. 2014. Assessing naturalness and emotional intensity: A perceptual study of animated facial motion. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Applied Perception (SAP '14). ACM, 15--22. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jennifer Hyde, Elizabeth J. Carter, Sara Kiesler, and Jessica K. Hodgins. 2015. Using an interactive avatar's facial expressiveness to increase persuasiveness and socialness. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15). ACM, 2801--2804. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jennifer Hyde, Sara Kiesler, Jessica K. Hodgins, and Elizabeth J. Carter. 2014. Conversing with children: Cartoon and video people elicit similar conversational behaviors. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '14). ACM, 1787--1796. Google ScholarDigital Library
- John Lasseter. 1987. Principles of traditional animation applied to 3D computer animation. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH '87), Vol. 21. ACM, 35--44. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dominic W. Massaro and Alexis Bosseler. 2006. Read my lips: The importance of the face in a computer-animated tutor for vocabulary learning by children with autism. Autism 10, 5 (2006), 495--510.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Iain Matthews and Simon Baker. 2004. Active appearance models revisited. International Journal of Computer Vision 60, 2 (2004), 135--164. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Micah O. Mazurek, Paul T. Shattuck, Mary Wagner, and Benjamin P. Cooper. 2012. Prevalence and correlates of screen-based media use among youths with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 42, 8 (2012), 1757--1767.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Beth A. Mineo, William Ziegler, Susan Gill, and Donna Salkin. 2009. Engagement with electronic screen media among students with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 39, 1 (2009), 172--187.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Monique Moore and Sandra Calvert. 2000. Vocabulary acquisition for children with autism: Teacher or computer instruction. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 30, 4 (2000), 359--362.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Laurent Mottron and Jacob A Burack. 2001. Enhanced perceptual functioning in the development of autism. In The Development of Autism: Perspectives from Theory and Research, Jacob A. Burack, Tony Charman, Nurit Yirmiya, and Philip R. Zelazo (Eds.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Mahwah, NJ, USA.Google Scholar
- Laurent Mottron, Michelle Dawson, Isabelle Soulieres, Benedicte Hubert, and Jake Burack. 2006. Enhanced perceptual functioning in autism: An update, and eight principles of autistic perception. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36, 1 (2006), 27--43.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Justin O'Brien, Janine Spencer, Christine Girges, Alan Johnston, and Harold Hill. 2014. Impaired perception of facial motion in autism spectrum disorder. PLOS One 9, 7 (2014), e102173.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Gael I. Orsmond and Hsin-Yu Kuo. 2011. The daily lives of adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder: Discretionary time use and activity partners. Autism 15, 5 (2011), 579--599.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Anthony J Plienis and Raymond G Romanczyk. 1985. Analyses of performance, behavior, and predictors for severely disturbed children: A comparison of adult vs. computer instruction. Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities 5, 4 (1985), 345--356.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Bertram O. Ploog, Alexa Scharf, DeShawn Nelson, and Patricia J. Brooks. 2013. Use of computer-assisted technologies (CAT) to enhance social, communicative, and language development in children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 43, 2 (2013), 301--322.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sathiyaprakash Ramdoss, Russell Lang, Austin Mulloy, Jessica Franco, Mark O'Reilly, Robert Didden, and Giulio Lancioni. 2011. Use of computer-based interventions to teach communication skills to children with autism spectrum disorders: A systematic review. Journal of Behavioral Education 20, 1 (2011), 55--76.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sathiyaprakash Ramdoss, Wendy Machalicek, Mandy Rispoli, Austin Mulloy, Russell Lang, and Mark O'Reilly. 2012. Computer-based interventions to improve social and emotional skills in individuals with autism spectrum disorders: A systematic review. Developmental Neurorehabilitation 15, 2 (2012), 119--135.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Keiran M. Rump, Joyce L. Giovannelli, Nancy J. Minshew, and Mark S. Strauss. 2009. The development of emotion recognition in individuals with autism. Child Development 80, 5 (2009), 1434--1447.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Wataru Sato, Shota Uono, and Motomi Toichi. 2013. Atypical recognition of dynamic changes in facial expressions in autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 7, 7 (2013), 906--912.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Andrew Sears and Vicki L Hanson. 2012. Representing users in accessibility research. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) 4, 2 (2012), 7. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Howard C. Shane and Patti Ducoff Albert. 2008. Electronic screen media for persons with autism spectrum disorders: Results of a survey. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 38, 8 (2008), 1499--1508.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Tristram Smith, Lawrence Scahill, Geraldine Dawson, Donald Guthrie, Catherine Lord, Samuel Odom, Sally Rogers, and Ann Wagner. 2007. Designing research studies on psychosocial interventions in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 37, 2 (2007), 354--366.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jennifer Tam, Elizbeth J. Carter, Sara Kiesler, and Jessica K. Hodgins. 2012. Video increases the perception of naturalness during remote interactions with latency. In Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '12), Extended Abstracts. ACM, 2045--2050. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Carole Tardif, France Laine, Melissa Rodriguez, and Bruno Gepner. 2007. Slowing down presentation of facial movements and vocal sounds enhances facial expression recognition and induces facial-vocal imitation in children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 37, 8 (2007), 1469--1484.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Andrea Tartaro and Justine Cassell. 2008. Playing with virtual peers: Bootstrapping contingent discourse in children with autism. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference for the Learning Sciences-Volume 2. International Society of the Learning Sciences, 382--389. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tomas Tjus, Mikael Heimann, and Keith E Nelson. 2001. Interaction patterns between children and their teachers when using a specific multimedia and communication strategy observations from children with autism and mixed intellectual disabilities. Autism 5, 2 (2001), 175--187.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Shota Uono, Wataru Sato, and Motomi Toichi. 2009. Dynamic fearful gaze does not enhance attention orienting in individuals with Aspergers disorder. Brain and Cognition 71, 3 (2009), 229--233.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Quan Wang, Feridun M. Celebi, Lilli Flink, Gabriella Greco, Carla Wall, Emily Prince, Sharlene Lansiquot, Katarzyna Chawarska, Elizabeth S. Kim, Laura Boccanfuso, Lauren DiNicola, and Frederick Shic. 2015. Interactive eye tracking for gaze strategy modification. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC '15). ACM, 247--250. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Investigating the Influence of Avatar Facial Characteristics on the Social Behaviors of Children with Autism
Recommendations
Leveraging curiosity to encourage social interactions in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: preliminary results using the interactive toy PlusMe
CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsAutism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a set of neurodevelopmental conditions, often characterised by important impairments in the social area. In the context of early intervention, we present preliminary results about the social behaviour of children with ...
Individual Differences of Children with Autism in Robot-assisted Autism Therapy
HRI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot InteractionResearch has recognized the importance of individual differences of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) that require interventions to meet their heterogeneous needs. This relatively large-scale study investigates a robot-assisted autism therapy ...
Social benefit analysis of the Otto robot in therapies for children with ASD
IMXw '23: Proceedings of the 2023 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences WorkshopsThis article aims to analyze the benefits and improvements in the life of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) brought through the use of the Otto robot during therapeutic sessions. The article explains how robotic therapy contributes to the ...
Comments