Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar 8;12(1):4120.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-08080-9.

Atypical processing pattern of gaze cues in dynamic situations in autism spectrum disorders

Jia Liu  1 , Jinsheng Hu  2 , Qi Li  1 , Xiaoning Zhao  1 , Ying Liu  1 , Shuqing Liu  3
Affiliations

Atypical processing pattern of gaze cues in dynamic situations in autism spectrum disorders

Jia Liu et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Psychological studies have generally shown that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have particularity in the processing of social information by using static or abstract images. Yet, a recent study showed that there was no difference in their use of social or non-social cues in dynamic interactive situations. To establish the cause of the inconsistent results, we added gaze cues in different directions to the chase detection paradigm to explore whether they would affect the performance of participants with ASD. Meanwhile, eye-tracking methodology was used to investigate whether the processing patterns of gaze cues were different between individuals with ASD and TD. In this study, unlike typical controls, participants with ASD showed no detection advantage when the direction of gaze was consistent with the direction of movement (oriented condition). The results suggested that individuals with ASD may utilize an atypical processing pattern, which makes it difficult for them to use social information contained in oriented gaze cues in dynamic interactive situations.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Illustration of the three cue conditions and chasing subtlety. The left image shows oriented cues, the center left one shows reverse cues, the center right image shows perpendicular cues, and the right image shows 15° chasing subtlety. The black arrows represent the direction of movement of the balls.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Graphical overview of the trial design.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Samples of AOIs. The four blue areas were AOI1, which were located within 2.5 times the radius of every agent. The yellow area was AOI2, which was located within 2.5 times the radius of agent at the barycenter of 5 agents.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Accuracy of detection of the two groups in the 75° chase subtlety condition. Note ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Agent-looking rate of the two groups for the three types of gaze cues.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Stray-looking rate of the two groups for the three types of gaze cues.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Cognitive sensitivity of the two groups in the three chase subtlety conditions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. (2013).
    1. Weisberg J, Milleville SC, Kenworthy L, Wallace GL, Gotts SJ, Beauchamp MS, Martin A. Social perception in autism spectrum disorders: impaired category selectivity for dynamic but not static images in ventral temporal cortex. Cereb. Cortex. 2014;24(1):37–48. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hamilton AFDC. Gazing at me: the importance of social meaning in understanding direct-gaze cues. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 2016;371(1686):20150080. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kaisler RE, Leder H. Combined effects of gaze and orientation of faces on person judgments in social situations. Front. Psychol. 2017;8:259. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Otsuka Y, Mareschal I, Calder AJ, Clifford CW. Dual-route model of the effect of head orientation on perceived gaze direction. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 2014;40(4):1425. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types