Figure 8. Characterization of the evolution of visual exploration patterns in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the typically developing (TD) group using a sliding window approach.

Panel A: The sliding window approach applied to the available recordings in our ASD group (red) and our TD group (blue); Panel B: gaze dispersion in two groups for the sliding windows n°7 and n°42 (mean age of windows 2.18 and 3.64 years, respectively); each circle represents a window encompassing 20 recordings; Panel C: Comparison of the gaze dispersion between two groups using Mean pairwise distance of gaze coordinates on each frame. The dispersion was calculated across 59 sliding windows spanning 1.88–4.28 years of age on average (here again, every circle represents a window encompassing 20 recordings). The windows with filled circles are those where a statistically significant difference between the two groups was shown using permutation testing. Error bars indicate a 95% confidence interval of the mean. As can be seen on panel C, dispersion values diminished in the TD group with advancing age, while the opposite pattern is observed in the ASD group showing a progressively more dispersed gaze behavior in the ASD group during childhood years.