Abnormal visual attention to simple social stimuli in 4-month-old infants at high risk for Autism

Abstract

Despite an increasing interest in detecting early signs of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), the pathogenesis of the social impairments characterizing ASD is still largely unknown. Atypical visual attention to social stimuli is a potential early marker of the social and communicative deficits of ASD. Some authors hypothesized that such impairments are present from birth, leading to a decline in the subsequent typical functioning of the learning-mechanisms. Others suggested that these early deficits emerge during the transition from subcortically to cortically mediated mechanisms, happening around 2–3 months of age. The present study aimed to provide additional evidence on the origin of the early visual attention disturbance that seems to characterize infants at high risk (HR) for ASD. Four visual preference tasks were used to investigate social attention in 4-month-old HR, compared to low-risk (LR) infants of the same age. Visual attention differences between HR and LR infants emerged only for stimuli depicting a direct eye-gaze, compared to an adverted eye-gaze. Specifically, HR infants showed a significant visual preference for the direct eye-gaze stimulus compared to LR infants, which may indicate a delayed development of the visual preferences normally observed at birth in typically developing infants. No other differences were found between groups. Results are discussed in the light of the hypotheses on the origins of early social visual attention impairments in infants at risk for ASD.

Life is in motion (through a chick’s eye)

“…Thus, it seems that simple objects with such motion features convey animacy perception in adults. Interestingly, this is also true in human newborns that can differentiate between self- and non-self-propelled objects (Di Giorgio et al 2017a , b ) as well as objects that change speed in different ways (Di Giorgio et al 2021a , b ). Such evidence suggests the existence of inborn predispositions to visual cues of motion that trigger animacy perception.…”

“…Compared to low-risk controls, high-risk newborns were more likely to look at nonanimate stimuli. Interestingly, in 4 months, the pattern was reversed as high-risk infants looked more at the stimuli representing animacy than low-risk infants did (Di Giorgio et al 2021a , b ). This is particularly intriguing as it suggests that the deficit in social predispositions might not be caused by the absence of an adequate mechanism but by a development delay in its activation.…”

“…Indeed, it has recently been found that chick embryos injected with chemicals that are risk factors for autism spectrum disorder lost their preference for static and dynamic animacy cues (Lorenzi et al 2019 ; Matsushima et al 2022 ; Sgadò et al 2018 ). In the same vein, human newborns and infants with low and high risks for autism perceive social stimuli differently (Di Giorgio et al 2016 , 2021a , b ). Compared to low-risk controls, high-risk newborns were more likely to look at nonanimate stimuli.…”

The domestic chick as an animal model of autism spectrum disorder: building adaptive social perceptions through prenatally formed predispositions

“…The predisposed face perception is not a fixed trait, and the developmental changes need to be carefully examined (Simion and Di Giorgio, 2015). More recently, it has been reported that newborns with a high familial risk of ASD (6-10 days of age) show a reduced face preference when compared with low-risk controls (Di Giorgio et al, 2016a); also see Di Giorgio et al (2021a) for the follow-up longitudinal study on 4-month-old infants.…”

Autism symptoms, functional impairments, and gaze fixation measured using an eye-tracker in 6-year-old children

“…The characteristics of atypical social attention have also been reported in very young children without a definite diagnosis of ASD but instead at high familial risk for ASD who have not yet started speaking. For instance, infants at high familial risk for ASD have been observed to show differences in visual attention to social stimuli compared with low-risk infants as early as 1 week after birth, and these abnormalities persist at 4 months of age ( 12 , 13 ). In a study involving infants diagnosed with ASD at 6 months of age, a decrease in gaze toward people and faces within social scenes has been reported ( 14 ).…”