Training Conditions for Establishing Visual Level 2 Perspective-Taking in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Perspective transformations that are considered the first step of visual level 2 perspective-taking (VPT2) are not highly active in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We investigated training procedures to develop moving to another viewpoint and observing the view from the new viewpoint to establish VPT2. The Face Rotation Task was used as the VPT2 task in three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the time-lag from the removal of sample stimuli to the presentation of comparison stimuli. The results of the two experiments indicated that VPT2 was established when participants move from the self-viewpoint to the other's viewpoint while continuing to look at the stimuli, and when participants move from the other's viewpoint to the self-viewpoint while maintaining a representation from the other's viewpoint. Eye movements during the presentation of sample stimuli were analyzed in Experiment 3. The results indicated the possibility of mutually looking at elements of a spatial array while performing the perspective transformation.