Abnormal use of facial information in high-functioning autism.
Altered visual exploration of faces likely contributes to social cognition deficits seen in autism. To investigate the relationship between face gaze and social cognition in autism, we measured both face gaze and how facial regions were actually used during emotion judgments from faces. Compared to IQ-matched healthy controls, nine high-functioning adults with autism failed to make use of information from the eye region of faces, instead relying primarily on information from the mouth. Face gaze accounted for the increased reliance on the mouth, and partially accounted for the deficit in using information from the eyes. These findings provide a novel quantitative assessment of how people with autism utilize information in faces when making social judgments.
Spezio
Michael L
ML
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, 228-77, California Institute of Technology, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. mlspezio@hss.caltech.edu
Adolphs
Ralph
R
Hurley
Robert S E
RS
Piven
Joseph
J
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013028:Space Perception; D014796:Visual Perception; D014888:Wechsler Scales