Attentional effects of gaze shifts are influenced by emotion and spatial frequency, but not in autism
Open accessAbstract
Objective Impaired gaze following is an important hallmark of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in clinical settings. Yet, ASD subjects perform normally on laboratory tasks involving gaze shifts. We investigated this contradiction, hypothesizing that impaired gaze following in ASDs is not related to basic impairments in attention orienting but to impaired emotion perception and abnormal processing of spatial frequencies (i.e., local and global information).Method We tested 30 high-functioning, school-age children with ASDs and 30 age- and IQ-matched controls on a task involving gaze shifts that cue the location of targets. The cueing faces differed in emotionality and were filtered for different spatial frequencies. We recorded behavioral responses (reaction times) and brain responses (event-related potentials).Results ASD subjects performed normally when neutral faces were used. However, emotional faces elicited modified face and gaze cue processing in control subjects, but not in the ASD subjects. Furthermore, the control group was biased toward the use of low spatial frequencies (global information) to process gaze cues, whereas the ASD group was biased toward the use of high spatial frequencies (local information).Conclusions We conclude that impaired gaze following in ASDs is related to impaired emotion processing. Moreover, ASD subjects show an abnormal reliance on local information to process gaze cues.
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Direct gaze, independent of the symmetry cues provided by differences between straight-ahead direct and averted gaze, is more problematic for those on the autism spectrum to process.
“Another difference noted between ASD and control groups, which may be related, is that direct gaze (independent of the symmetry cues provided by differences between straight-ahead direct and averted gaze) is more problematic for those on the autism spectrum to process.”
From Vision in autism spectrum disorders (2009) · cites this paper as De Jong et al., 2008
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- Authors
- de JONG, M. C., van ENGELAND, H., & KEMNER, C.
- Affiliations
- University Medical Center Utrecht (NL)
- Venue
- Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008-04
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 443-454
- ISSN
- 0890-8567 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7616329
- OpenAlex
- W1966328836
- Cited by
- 76
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 2.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (402-01-094)
- 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, gaze following, gaze shifts, attentional orienting, emotion perception, spatial frequency, face processing, gaze cueing, local versus global processing, event-related potentials, high-functioning children
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Attention, Autistic Disorder, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Child, Cues, Electroencephalography, Evoked Potentials, Visual, Facial Expression, Fear, Female, Fixation, Ocular, Humans, Male, Orientation, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Perceptual Masking, Reaction Time, Reference Values, Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
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