title: The use of eye-tracking to explore social difficulties in cognitively able students with autism spectrum disorder: A pilot investigation.
abstract: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder do not just 'grow out of' their early difficulties in understanding the social world. Even for those who are cognitively able, autism-related difficulties continue into adulthood. Atypicalities attending to and interpreting communicative signals from others can provide barriers to success in education, employment and relationships. In the current study, we use eye-tracking during real social interaction to explore attention to social cues (e.g. face, eyes, mouth) and links to social awareness in a group of cognitively able University students with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing students from the same University. During the interaction, students with autism spectrum disorder showed less eye fixation and more mouth fixation than typically developing students. Importantly, while 63% of typically developing participants reported thinking they were deceived about the true nature of the interaction, only 9% of autism spectrum disorder participants picked up this subtle social signal. We argue that understanding how these social attentional and social awareness difficulties manifest during adulthood is important given the growing number of adults with autism spectrum disorder who are attending higher level education. These adults may be particularly susceptible to drop-out due to demands of coping in situations where social awareness is so important.
authors.affiliation: Durham University, UK mary.hanley@durham.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hanley
authors.affiliation: Durham University, UK.
authors.forename: Debbie M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Riby
authors.affiliation: Queen's University Belfast, UK.
authors.forename: Clare
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Carty
authors.affiliation: Queen's University Belfast, UK.
authors.forename: Annie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Melaugh McAteer
authors.affiliation: Queen's University Belfast, UK.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.affiliation: Queen's University Belfast, UK.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McPhillips
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: autism spectrum disorders; eye-tracking; high functioning; social attention; social awareness; social interaction