title: Gazefinder as a clinical supplementary tool for discriminating between autism spectrum disorder and typical development in male adolescents and adults.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Gaze abnormality is a diagnostic criterion for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, few easy-to-use clinical tools exist to evaluate the unique eye-gaze patterns of ASD. Recently, we developed Gazefinder, an all-in-one eye-tracking system for early detection of ASD in toddlers. Because abnormal gaze patterns have been documented in various ASD age groups, we predicted that Gazefinder might also detect gaze abnormality in adolescents and adults. In this study, we tested whether Gazefinder could identify unique gaze patterns in adolescents and adults with ASD.
  
  
  METHODS
  We measured the percentage of eye fixation time allocated to particular objects depicted in movies (i.e., eyes and mouth in human face movies, upright and inverted biological motion in movies that presented these stimuli simultaneously, and people and geometry in movies that presented these stimuli simultaneously) by male adolescents and adults with ASD (N = 26) and age-matched males with typical development (TD; N = 35). We compared these percentages between the two groups (ASD and TD) and with scores on the social responsiveness scale (SRS). Further, we conducted discriminant analyses to determine if fixation times allocated to particular objects could be used to discriminate between individuals with and without ASD.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared with the TD group, the ASD group showed significantly less fixation time at locations of salient social information (i.e., eyes in the movie of human faces without lip movement and people in the movie of people and geometry), while there were no significant groupwise differences in the responses to movies of human faces with lip movement or biological motion. In a within-group correlation analysis, a few of the fixation-time items correlated with SRS, although most of them did not. No items significantly correlated with SRS in both ASD and TD groups. The percentage fixation times to eyes and people, which exhibited large effect sizes for the group difference, could differentiate ASD and TD with a sensitivity of 81.0% and a specificity of 80.0%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings suggest that Gazefinder is potentially a valuable and easy-to-use tool for objectively measuring unique gaze patterns and discriminating between ASD and TD in male adolescents and adults.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fujioka
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications, Chofu, Tokyo, 182-8585 Japan.
authors.forename: Keisuke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Inohara
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Okamoto
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan.
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Masuya
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Tokyo, 187-8553 Japan.
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ishitobi
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan ; Biomedical Imaging Research Center, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan.
authors.forename: Daisuke N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Minyoung
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Sumiyoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Arai
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan.
authors.forename: Yukiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Matsumura
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi X
authors.initials: TX
authors.lastname: Fujisawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, Maebashi, Gunma 371-8511 Japan.
authors.forename: Kosuke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Narita
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan ; Research Center for Child Mental Development, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-3192 Japan ; Department of Psychiatry, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-3192 Japan.
authors.forename: Katsuaki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan ; Research Center for Child Mental Development, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-3192 Japan ; Department of Psychiatry, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-3192 Japan.
authors.forename: Kenji J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Tsuchiya
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan ; Research Center for Child Mental Development, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-3192 Japan ; Department of Psychiatry, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka 431-3192 Japan.
authors.forename: Norio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Taiichi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Katayama
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan ; Research Center for Children's Mental Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan ; Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan ; Research Center for Child Mental Development, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-8641 Japan.
authors.forename: Toshio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Munesue
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan ; Biomedical Imaging Research Center, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan.
authors.forename: Hidehiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okazawa
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Akemi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tomoda
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wada
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychiatry, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Eiheiji, Fukui 910-1193 Japan ; Department of Child Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Kanazawa University, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Chiba University, and University of Fukui, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 Japan.
authors.forename: Hirotaka
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kosaka
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D019540:Area Under Curve; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009799:Ocular Physiological Phenomena; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011594:Psychometrics; D012372:ROC Curve; D012919:Social Behavior; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Adolescent; Adult; Autism spectrum disorder; Biological motion; Discriminant analysis; Eye-tracking; Face; Fixation; Gaze abnormality; Geometry