Does decreased visual attention to faces underlie difficulties interpreting eye gaze cues in autism?
Jason W Griffin, K Suzanne Scherf
PMID 32693828WHAT IT FOUND
Adolescents with autism struggled to identify what others were looking at, but not because they looked less at faces.
Time spent looking at faces did not predict accuracy. Interventions targeting increased face looking may not improve understanding of gaze cues.
Key findings
01Adolescents with ASD showed impaired ability to identify gazed-at objects compared to TD peers in both dynamic and static tasks.
02There was no significant difference in the amount of time adolescents with ASD and TD peers spent looking at faces.
03Looking time at faces did not predict task accuracy for either group, challenging the idea that reduced face attention causes gaze processing deficits.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size (N=70) is larger than many similar studies but may still be underpowered to detect subtle differences or interactions, particularly regarding sex differences which could not be evaluated. Participants with ASD were recruited from a larger intervention study with strict inclusion criteria (compliance with testing, IQ 70-130), so results may not generalize to individuals with lower IQs or more severe symptoms. The study used a cross-sectional design, so it cannot determine how these gaze processing abilities change over time during adolescence.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (US). The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that adolescents with autism simply look less at faces. The study found that face looking time was similar between groups and did not explain the difficulty in identifying what others were looking at. The deficit appears to lie in interpreting the meaning of the gaze, not in the visual attention to the face itself.