Visual scanning of faces in autism.
The visual scanpaths of five high-functioning adult autistic males and five adult male controls were recorded using an infrared corneal reflection technique as they viewed photographs of human faces. Analyses of the scanpath data revealed marked differences in the scanpaths of the two groups. The autistic participants viewed nonfeature areas of the faces significantly more often and core feature areas of the faces (i.e., eyes, nose, and mouth) significantly less often than did control participants. Across both groups of participants, scanpaths generally did not differ as a function of the instructions given to the participants (i.e., "Please look at the faces in any manner you wish." vs. "Please identify the emotions portrayed in these faces."). Autistic participants showed a deficit in emotion recognition, but this effect was driven primarily by deficits in the recognition of fear. Collectively, these results indicate disorganized processing of face stimuli in autistic individuals and suggest a mechanism that may subserve the social information processing deficits that characterize autism spectrum disorders.
Department of Psychology, UNC Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA. kevin.pelphrey@duke.edu
Kevin A
KA
Pelphrey
Noah J
NJ
Sasson
J Steven
JS
Reznick
Gregory
G
Paul
Barbara D
BD
Goldman
Joseph
J
Piven
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001321:Autistic Disorder; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012938:Social Perception; D014796:Visual Perception