Children with autism view faces in a different way than their neurotypical peers

New research indicates that in the early stages of visual processing, children with autism view faces in a different way than neurotypical children.

Jason Griffin and colleagues examined the way in which 280 children with autism and 119 neurotypical children looked at social images, conducting three separate tests over a 24-week period. All of the children in the study were between six and 11 years of age.

Griffin reports, “Our analysis supported the existence of two eye movement patterns that emerged across three social perception assays. A focused pattern was characterized by small face regions of interest that captured looking immediately. In contrast, an exploratory pattern was characterized by larger face regions of interest that included nonsocial objects and did not capture looking immediately.”

The researchers found that in all three tests, children with autism exhibited significantly more exploratory eye movement patterns than neurotypical controls. They add, “Eye movement patterns were associated with clinical features of autism, including adaptive function, face recognition, and autism symptom severity.”

The researchers conclude, “Decreased likelihood of precisely looking at faces early in social visual processing may be an important feature of autism that is associated with autism-related symptomatology and may reflect less visual sensitivity to face information.”

Citations

“Spatiotemporal eye movement dynamics reveal altered face prioritization in early visual processing among children with autism,” Jason W. Griffin, Adam Naples, Raphael Bernier, Katarzyna Chawarska, Geraldine Dawson, James Dziura, Susan Faja, Shafali Jeste, Natalia Kleinhans, Catherine Sugar, Sara Jane Webb, Frederick Shic, and James C. McPartland, Biological Psychiatry, September 3, 2024 (online). Address: James McPartland, [email protected].

—and—

“Eyes on the brain: How eye movements help understand facial processing in children with autism,” news release, Laurie Fickman, University of Houston, December 9, 2024.