Autistic Symptomatology, Face Processing Abilities, and Eye Fixation Patterns

Kirchner, Jennifer; Hatri, Alexander; Heekeren, Hauke R.; Dziobek, Isabel

doi:10.1007/s10803-010-1032-9

Cited by 102 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The magnitude of this effect for mouth trials does not imply a behavioral benefit for processing information from the mouth, consistent with previous studies Kirchner et al, 2011). If current eye movements could be explained by a greater interest in the mouth in ASD, this should lead to increased mouth exposure across the lifespan, resulting in increased performance when looking at the mouth.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

The Role of the Amygdala in Atypical Gaze on Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Kliemann¹,

Dziobek²,

Hatri³

et al. 2012

Journal of Neuroscience

154

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Reduced focus toward the eyes is a characteristic of atypical gaze on emotional faces in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Along with the atypical gaze, aberrant amygdala activity during face processing compared with neurotypically developed (NT) participants has been repeatedly reported in ASD. It remains unclear whether the previously reported dysfunctional amygdalar response patterns in ASD support an active avoidance of direct eye contact or rather a lack of social attention. Using a recently introduced emotion classification task, we investigated eye movements and changes in blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the amygdala with a 3T MRI scanner in 16 autistic and 17 control adult human participants. By modulating the initial fixation position on faces, we investigated changes triggered by the eyes compared with the mouth. Between-group interaction effects revealed different patterns of gaze and amygdalar BOLD changes in ASD and NT: Individuals with ASD gazed more often away from than toward the eyes, compared with the NT group, which showed the reversed tendency. An interaction contrast of group and initial fixation position further yielded a significant cluster of amygdala activity. Extracted parameter estimates showed greater response to eyes fixation in ASD, whereas the NT group showed an increase for mouth fixation.The differing patterns of amygdala activity in combination with differing patterns of gaze behavior between groups triggered by direct eye contact and mouth fixation, suggest a dysfunctional profile of the amygdala in ASD involving an interplay of both eye-avoidance processing and reduced orientation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

The Role of the Amygdala in Atypical Gaze on Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Kliemann¹,

Dziobek²,

Hatri³

et al. 2012

Journal of Neuroscience

154

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, research studies using gaze tracking report pronounced impairments of individuals with ASD in implicit social cognition (e.g., Jones and Klin 2009;Kirchner et al 2011;Klin et al 2009;Pitskel et al 2011;Kirchner et al 2011). The social cognitive deficits of individuals with ASD have been related to aberrant gaze patterns when looking at emotional face stimuli or naturalistic social scenes (Klin et al 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Approximating Implicit and Explicit Mentalizing with Two Naturalistic Video-Based Tasks in Typical Development and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Rosenblau

Kliemann

Heekeren

et al. 2014

J Autism Dev Disord

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Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been proposed to show greater impairments in implicit than explicit mentalizing. To test this proposition, we developed two comparable naturalistic tasks for a performance-based approximation of implicit and explicit mentalizing in 28 individuals with ASD and 23 matched typically developed (TD) participants. Although both tasks were sensitive to the social impairments of individuals with ASD, implicit mentalizing was not more dysfunctional than explicit mentalizing. In TD participants, performance on the tasks did not correlate with each other, whereas in individuals with ASD they were highly correlated. These findings suggest that implicit and explicit mentalizing processes are separable in typical development. In contrast, in individuals with ASD implicit and explicit mentalizing processes are similarly impaired and closely linked suggesting a lack of developmental specification of these processes in ASD.

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“…As the participants in our study were high-functioning individuals with ASD we felt it was appropriate to compare with neurotypical adults of similar intellectual capacity, a strategy used in several similar studies previously (e.g. Kirchner, Hatri, Heekeren, & Dziobek, 2010;Sawyer et al, 2012). However future studies may consider comparing with a group of individuals with other known developmental conditions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Other Minds as a Window Onto the World: Guessing What Happened from Clues in Behaviour

Pillai

Sheppard

Ropar

et al. 2014

J Autism Dev Disord

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Autistic Symptomatology, Face Processing Abilities, and Eye Fixation Patterns

Cited by 102 publications

References 32 publications

The Role of the Amygdala in Atypical Gaze on Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorders

The Role of the Amygdala in Atypical Gaze on Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Approximating Implicit and Explicit Mentalizing with Two Naturalistic Video-Based Tasks in Typical Development and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Using Other Minds as a Window Onto the World: Guessing What Happened from Clues in Behaviour

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