Change in Scene Detection: Who’s Better?

The study by Smith and Milne (2009), studied change blindness or the phenomenon in which in a given visual scene, there is a limit to the number of items one can attend to, among the individuals with autism. The results revealed that the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) group significantly identified more errors in a film with discontinuity errors than the Typically Developing (TD) controls. It has been identified that individuals with autism can look at the details that the typical observers usually undermine. In both groups however, they were able to identify more central errors than marginal errors though it is larger in the TD group. There was also no difference in the number of social and non-social errors identified by the groups. Social stimuli are those which can easily be noticed and captured even by the children, actor in this particular study. The results indicated that the ASD group showed enhanced visual function, and lack of filtering of visual information. In other words, these individuals are more sensitive to even simple visual stimuli.

The independent variable in the study was the condition of having an autism or not having an autism while the dependent variable was the number of errors, which could be central or marginal, social or non-social, identified in a movie where continuity errors were deliberately introduced.

There were 15 adolescents in the ASD group, and 15 in the TD group who participated in the experiment with their informed consent. These participants were diagnosed using the DSM-IV criteria. 20 Short clips were created. 16 of which contained specific continuity errors: 8 were actors(social) and 8 were objects(non-social); 8 were central and 8 were marginal errors. Central errors are those contextually relevant with the clip content, while marginal ones are those contextually irrelevant. Participants were told that a film would be shown to them and that they needed to spot the mistakes in relation to the clips created. After watching each clip and the film is paused, participants were asked if they noticed some mistakes and describe what happened. After this, two information questions were also asked for them to focus also on the content. The experimenter read the questions loud while these questions were seen on the screen. The participants needed to write down their answers on the booklet provided. The experimenter checked if they had answers for each question. Then, the results were taken and interpreted. The interpretations were attested by the two chi-square analyses comparing the number of errors detected by each group.

Comments:

The study is very interesting and socially-relevant because it helps to explain the situation of the individuals with autism. In my view, our society is very discriminatory that less dominant ideas and behaviors are often stigmatized just in the cases of the individuals having autism. The socially-relevant part of this study is that people are not homogenous in looking at things. Therefore, through this experiment, we are enlightened to respect and understand people who do not behave with the dominant ideas. We are able to understand and explain the differences scientifically.

I do not have any problem when it comes to the participants since the mean chronological age of the two groups had a very small gap. Age could be a great factor in visual experiments. Most importantly, ethical considerations were emphasized. Ensuring that the participants focus not only on the superficial aspects but also on the content of the film, added to the validity of the research.

Source:

Smith, H. and Milne, E. (2009). Reduced change blindness suggests enhanced attention to detail in individuals with autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50:3 pp 300-306.