Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Individuals with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities (PIMD) experience a combination of severe cognitive and motor impairments frequently associated with additional sensory deficits and numerous medical disorders. The purpose of the present study was to propose an experimental paradigm b...

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Main Authors: Thalia Cavadini, Yannick Courbois, Edouard Gentaz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2022-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9009637/?tool=EBI
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author Thalia Cavadini
Yannick Courbois
Edouard Gentaz
author_facet Thalia Cavadini
Yannick Courbois
Edouard Gentaz
author_sort Thalia Cavadini
collection DOAJ
description Individuals with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities (PIMD) experience a combination of severe cognitive and motor impairments frequently associated with additional sensory deficits and numerous medical disorders. The purpose of the present study was to propose an experimental paradigm based on eye-tracking that combines various pre-existing tasks from infancy research as an assessment tool. This would enable the investigation of social-emotional abilities in nine young individuals with PIMD through their visual preferences for different types of stimuli. The first objective was to test the feasibility of this paradigm, by expecting individuals to look more at the tasks’ presentation screen than elsewhere during its implementation. The second objective was to investigate whether PIMD individuals exhibit visual preferences for (a) biological (vs. non-biological) motion, (b) socially salient (vs. non-social) scenes, (c) the facial area of the eyes (vs. the mouth), (d) happy (vs. angry) faces, (e) objects of joint attention (vs. non-looked at ones), and for (f) prosocial (vs. anti-social) behaviors similar to those of a control group of typically developing children aged two years on average. Overall, the feasibility of this paradigm proved to be good, resulting in high individual looking rates that were not affected by the presentation or the content of the tasks. Analyses of individual social-emotional abilities, supported by the visual preference patterns of each PIMD individual, firstly revealed strong—but expected—variability both within and between subjects, and secondly highlighted some individual task-specific abilities although few similarities between these individual results and those of the control group were found. These findings underline the great relevance of using this type of paradigm for assessing PIMD individuals and thus contribute to a better understanding of their social and emotional development.
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spelling doaj.art-0fcc6ccb7cc446b2ac6f47de91c7eea52022-12-22T02:03:47ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032022-01-01174Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilitiesThalia CavadiniYannick CourboisEdouard GentazIndividuals with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities (PIMD) experience a combination of severe cognitive and motor impairments frequently associated with additional sensory deficits and numerous medical disorders. The purpose of the present study was to propose an experimental paradigm based on eye-tracking that combines various pre-existing tasks from infancy research as an assessment tool. This would enable the investigation of social-emotional abilities in nine young individuals with PIMD through their visual preferences for different types of stimuli. The first objective was to test the feasibility of this paradigm, by expecting individuals to look more at the tasks’ presentation screen than elsewhere during its implementation. The second objective was to investigate whether PIMD individuals exhibit visual preferences for (a) biological (vs. non-biological) motion, (b) socially salient (vs. non-social) scenes, (c) the facial area of the eyes (vs. the mouth), (d) happy (vs. angry) faces, (e) objects of joint attention (vs. non-looked at ones), and for (f) prosocial (vs. anti-social) behaviors similar to those of a control group of typically developing children aged two years on average. Overall, the feasibility of this paradigm proved to be good, resulting in high individual looking rates that were not affected by the presentation or the content of the tasks. Analyses of individual social-emotional abilities, supported by the visual preference patterns of each PIMD individual, firstly revealed strong—but expected—variability both within and between subjects, and secondly highlighted some individual task-specific abilities although few similarities between these individual results and those of the control group were found. These findings underline the great relevance of using this type of paradigm for assessing PIMD individuals and thus contribute to a better understanding of their social and emotional development.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9009637/?tool=EBI
spellingShingle Thalia Cavadini
Yannick Courbois
Edouard Gentaz
Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
PLoS ONE
title Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
title_full Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
title_fullStr Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
title_full_unstemmed Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
title_short Eye-tracking-based experimental paradigm to assess social-emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
title_sort eye tracking based experimental paradigm to assess social emotional abilities in young individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9009637/?tool=EBI
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