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Investigation of Eye-Tracking Scan Path as a Biomarker for Autism Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms
Autism spectrum disorder is a group of disorders marked by difficulties with social skills, repetitive activities, speech, and nonverbal communication. Deficits in paying attention to, and processing, social stimuli are common for children with autism spectrum disorders. It is uncertain whether eye-...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871384/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35204608 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12020518 |
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author | Kanhirakadavath, Mujeeb Rahman Chandran, Monica Subashini Mohan |
author_facet | Kanhirakadavath, Mujeeb Rahman Chandran, Monica Subashini Mohan |
author_sort | Kanhirakadavath, Mujeeb Rahman |
collection | PubMed |
description | Autism spectrum disorder is a group of disorders marked by difficulties with social skills, repetitive activities, speech, and nonverbal communication. Deficits in paying attention to, and processing, social stimuli are common for children with autism spectrum disorders. It is uncertain whether eye-tracking technologies can assist in establishing an early biomarker of autism based on the children’s atypical visual preference patterns. In this study, we used machine learning methods to test the applicability of eye-tracking data in children to aid in the early screening of autism. We looked into the effectiveness of various machine learning techniques to discover the best model for predicting autism using visualized eye-tracking scan path images. We adopted three traditional machine learning models and a deep neural network classifier to run experimental trials. This study employed a publicly available dataset of 547 graphical eye-tracking scan paths from 328 typically developing and 219 autistic children. We used image augmentation to populate the dataset to prevent the model from overfitting. The deep neural network model outperformed typical machine learning approaches on the populated dataset, with 97% AUC, 93.28% sensitivity, 91.38% specificity, 94.46% NPV, and 90.06% PPV (fivefold cross-validated). The findings strongly suggest that eye-tracking data help clinicians for a quick and reliable autism screening. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8871384 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-88713842022-02-25 Investigation of Eye-Tracking Scan Path as a Biomarker for Autism Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms Kanhirakadavath, Mujeeb Rahman Chandran, Monica Subashini Mohan Diagnostics (Basel) Article Autism spectrum disorder is a group of disorders marked by difficulties with social skills, repetitive activities, speech, and nonverbal communication. Deficits in paying attention to, and processing, social stimuli are common for children with autism spectrum disorders. It is uncertain whether eye-tracking technologies can assist in establishing an early biomarker of autism based on the children’s atypical visual preference patterns. In this study, we used machine learning methods to test the applicability of eye-tracking data in children to aid in the early screening of autism. We looked into the effectiveness of various machine learning techniques to discover the best model for predicting autism using visualized eye-tracking scan path images. We adopted three traditional machine learning models and a deep neural network classifier to run experimental trials. This study employed a publicly available dataset of 547 graphical eye-tracking scan paths from 328 typically developing and 219 autistic children. We used image augmentation to populate the dataset to prevent the model from overfitting. The deep neural network model outperformed typical machine learning approaches on the populated dataset, with 97% AUC, 93.28% sensitivity, 91.38% specificity, 94.46% NPV, and 90.06% PPV (fivefold cross-validated). The findings strongly suggest that eye-tracking data help clinicians for a quick and reliable autism screening. MDPI 2022-02-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8871384/ /pubmed/35204608 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12020518 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Kanhirakadavath, Mujeeb Rahman Chandran, Monica Subashini Mohan Investigation of Eye-Tracking Scan Path as a Biomarker for Autism Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms |
title | Investigation of Eye-Tracking Scan Path as a Biomarker for Autism Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms |
title_full | Investigation of Eye-Tracking Scan Path as a Biomarker for Autism Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms |
title_fullStr | Investigation of Eye-Tracking Scan Path as a Biomarker for Autism Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms |
title_full_unstemmed | Investigation of Eye-Tracking Scan Path as a Biomarker for Autism Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms |
title_short | Investigation of Eye-Tracking Scan Path as a Biomarker for Autism Screening Using Machine Learning Algorithms |
title_sort | investigation of eye-tracking scan path as a biomarker for autism screening using machine learning algorithms |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8871384/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35204608 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12020518 |
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