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Eye-direction detection: A dissociation between geometric and joint attention skills in autism
Abstract
This study examined differences between children with autism and control children in the ability to follow another person's direction of gaze. In Expt 1, children with autism, Down syndrome and normally developing children were given two tasks. The gaze monitoring task (GMT) measured the child's spontaneous tendency to follow gaze direction in response to another person's change of head and eye movement. The visual perspective taking task (VPT) measured the child's ability to compute and report what the other person was looking at, when instructed to do so. Results showed that the majority of Down syndrome and normal children passed both tasks. In contrast, children with autism failed the GMT. This failure could not have been due to a lack of the relevant geometric skill, as they passed the VPT. This geometric skill was examined further in Expt 2, using a fine discrimination task which tested children's ability to discriminate degrees of change in the orientation of gaze. Children with autism were well within their developmental age level on this task. These results indicate a dissociation between (impaired) spontaneous monitoring and (intact) geometric analysis of gaze‐direction.
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“Leekam, Baron-Cohen, Perrett, Milders, and Brown (1997) found that the ability of children with ASD to discriminate degrees of change in the orientation of the gaze of an adult from carefully prepared and calibrated photographs was well matched to their developmental age level, corresponding to a displacement of the iris as small as 3.5 arcmin”
From Vision in autism spectrum disorders (2009) · cites this paper as Leekam et al. (1997)
In the citing paper
“although their ability to spontaneously follow the gaze of an experimenter was well below that of controls.”
From Vision in autism spectrum disorders (2009) · cites this paper as Leekam et al. (1997)
In the citing paper
“Their task was likely more challenging than that of Leekam et al. (1997) in that the gaze displacements were smaller.”
From Vision in autism spectrum disorders (2009) · cites this paper as Leekam et al. (1997)
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“For example, there is evidence that despite difficulties in following gaze spontaneously, autistic children can follow gazewhen instructed (Leekam et al., 1997).”
BackgroundResultSelf-citationNeural correlates of eye gaze processing in the infant broader autism phenotype
Elsabbagh, M., Volein, A., Csibra, G., Holmboe, K., Garwood, H., Tucker, L., Krljes, S., Baron-Cohen, S., Bolton, P., Charman, T., et al. (2009) · Biological Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.09.034 · Cited by 206
“Individuals ith autism are able to estimate gaze direction (5), and they show eflexive orienting toward objects cued by another’s gaze (6,7); owever, they are atypical in the context of mutual gaze, that is, hen the perceiver makes eye contact (8).”
Self-citationBurger (1998) · doi:10.1002/(sici)1098-2779(1998)4:2
Metadata
- Authors
- Leekam, S., Baron‐Cohen, S., Perrett, D., Milders, M., & Brown, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Kent (GB)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- University of St Andrews (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Leekam, Susan
- Venue
- British Journal of Developmental Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1997-03
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 77-95
- ISSN
- 0261-510X (ISSN-L)
- 2044-835X
- OpenAlex
- W2171357760
- Cited by
- 257
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 4.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- British Journal of Developmental Psychology (publishedVersion)
- Kent Academic Repository (University of Kent) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, joint attention, visual perspective taking, Down syndrome, social cognition, children
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