Effects of being watched on eye gaze and facial displays of typical and autistic individuals during conversation.

The task was highly structured, with timed question and answer phases, so it may not show what happens in natural conversation. The setup used an occluder that masked most of the confederate's body except a window, so it may not capture full face-to-face interaction. All autistic participants were described as high-functioning, with IQ above 80, so findings may not apply to autistic people with lower cognitive or verbal abilities. The confederate's eye-tracking data had poor signal quality and were not analysed, so the study could not check whether the confederate looked at typical and autistic participants in the same way. The authors could not tell whether the initial higher eye gaze in autistic adults reflected natural behaviour or a learned strategy to manage social situations. The study did not record ethnicity, socioeconomic status or education.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. Funding came from la Caixa Foundation, the Alan & Nesta Ferguson Trust, a European Research Council Starting Grant and The Leverhulme Trust. The funding bodies had no involvement in the execution of the study or the writing of the report.

Do not conclude that autistic adults have typical eye contact in every real social situation. This study used a highly structured question-and-answer task, only included autistic adults with high cognitive and verbal abilities, and could not determine whether the initial higher eye gaze reflected natural behaviour or a learned strategy.