Context Modulates Attention to Faces in Dynamic Social Scenes in Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Dzmitry A Kaliukhovich, Nikolay V Manyakov, Abigail Bangerter and 1 others
PMID 34623583WHAT IT FOUND
Children and adults with autism looked at faces less than typically developing peers, but only when watching an actor perform a task or react to a moving toy.
When the actor spoke directly to the camera, looking time at faces was similar between the two groups.
Key findings
01Individuals with ASD spent significantly less time looking at faces than controls during the Activity and Joint Attention conditions, but not during the Dyadic Bid condition where the actor spoke to the camera.
02During the Activity condition, individuals with ASD looked significantly less at the mouth area compared to typically developing controls.
03There was no significant relationship between the severity of ASD symptoms and the amount of time spent looking at faces or other regions of interest.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was exploratory with no correction for multiple comparisons, meaning some significant findings could be due to chance. IQ data was only collected for the ASD group, preventing a direct comparison of how intelligence influences looking time between the two groups. The eye-tracking paradigm used static regions of interest, which may mask differences in the timing or sequence of gaze shifts. The stimuli were videos of actors in a lab setting, which may not reflect real-life social interactions.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Janssen Research and Development.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that individuals with ASD have a global deficit in attention to faces. The study found no difference in face looking time when the actor spoke directly to the camera, suggesting that attention to social cues is highly context-dependent rather than uniformly impaired.