Sensory salience processing moderates attenuated gazes on faces in autism spectrum disorder: a case-control study.
Nico Bast, Luke Mason, Christine Ecker and 8 others
PMID 36759875WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic individuals looked less at faces during video scenes, but this difference disappeared once pupillary responses were accounted for.
Higher early pupil dilation predicted less face viewing, suggesting sensory reactivity rather than social avoidance drives the gaze pattern.
Key findings
01Gazes on faces were lower in the ASD group compared to controls, but this difference became non-significant when pupillary response was included in the model.
02Pupillary responses differed by group and scene type: higher for non-human scenes and lower for human scenes in ASD compared to controls.
03An early component of the pupillary response was negatively associated with gazes on faces, while a later component was positively associated.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study excluded individuals with an IQ below 60, so the findings do not apply to those with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities. Naturalistic videos meant that stimulus salience and luminance could not be strictly controlled across scenes. Pupil size is influenced by many cognitive processes, so it cannot definitively isolate the specific brain mechanism proposed (LC-NE activity). The sample was heterogeneous in age and development, which may mask specific effects in narrower subgroups.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that autistic individuals have a primary deficit in social attention or face preference. The study found that the difference in looking at faces disappeared when pupillary responses were considered, indicating that sensory reactivity explains the gaze pattern better than social motivation does.