The development of face orienting mechanisms in infants at-risk for autism
Open accessAbstract
A popular idea related to early brain development in autism is that a lack of attention to, or interest in, social stimuli early in life interferes with the emergence of social brain networks mediating the typical development of socio-communicative skills. Compelling as it is, this developmental account has proved difficult to verify empirically because autism is typically diagnosed in toddlerhood, after this process of brain specialization is well underway. Using a prospective study, we directly tested the integrity of social orienting mechanisms in infants at-risk for autism by virtue of having an older diagnosed sibling. Contrary to previous accounts, infants who later develop autism exhibit a clear orienting response to faces that are embedded within an array of distractors. Nevertheless, infants at-risk for autism as a group, and irrespective of their subsequent outcomes, had a greater tendency to select and sustain attention to faces. This pattern suggests that interactions among multiple social and attentional brain systems over the first two years give rise to variable pathways in infants at-risk.
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Studies that measure only the number of gazes to a face per minute and studies that use complex arrays that elicit very short individual fixations may not detect overall deficits in attention allocation.
“Studies that measure only the number of gazes to a face per minute [11] and studies that use complex arrays that elicit very short individual fixations of average duration 600 ms [19] may not detect overall deficits in attention allocation.”
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References 72 · Cited by 257
- Authors
- Elsabbagh, M., Gliga, T., Pickles, A., Hudry, K., Charman, T., & Johnson, M. H.
- Affiliations
- McGill University (CA)
- Birkbeck, University of London (GB)
- King's College London (GB)
- La Trobe University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Elsabbagh, Mayada
- Venue
- Behavioural Brain Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-08
- Volume
- 251
- Pages
- 147-154
- ISSN
- 0166-4328 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3730054
- OpenAlex
- W2097423599
- Cited by
- 257
- References
- 72
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 81 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 9
- FWCI
- 7.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Behavioural Brain Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- BIROn (Birkbeck, University of London) (acceptedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- UEA Digital Repository (University of East Anglia) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute for Health and Care Research (NF-SI-0510-10268)
- Medical Research Council (G0701484)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, social attention, face attention, social brain network, early brain development, selective attention, social orienting
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Autistic Disorder, Child Development, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Orientation, Prospective Studies, Risk Factors, Social Behavior, Social Perception, Infant Behavior, Siblings
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