AUTHOR=Mouga Susana , Duarte Isabel Catarina , Café Cátia , Sousa Daniela , Duque Frederico , Oliveira Guiomar , Castelo-Branco Miguel TITLE=Attentional Cueing and Executive Deficits Revealed by a Virtual Supermarket Task Coupled With Eye-Tracking in Autism Spectrum Disorder JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=12 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.671507 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.671507 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Executive functioning (EF) impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) impact on complex functions, such as social cognition. We assessed this link between EF, attentional cueing, and social cognition with a novel ecological task, “EcoSupermarketX.” Our task had three blocks of increasing executive load and incorporated social and non-social cues, with different degrees of saliency. Performance of ASD and typical neurodevelopment was compared. The ASD showed a significant performance dependence on the presence of contextual cues. Difficulties increased as a function of cognitive load. Between-group differences were found both for social and non-social salient cues. Eye-tracking measures showed significantly larger fixation time of more salient social cues in ASD. In sum, EcoSupermarketX is sensitive to detect EF and attentional cueing deficits in ASD.