Brief Report: Perception of Genuine and Posed Smiles by Individuals with Autism

Abstract

Individuals with autism are impaired in the recognition of fear, which may be due to their reduced tendency to look at the eyes. Here we investigated another potential perceptual and social consequence of reduced eye fixation. The eye region of the face is critical for identifying genuine, or sincere, smiles. We therefore investigated this ability in adults with autism. We used eye-tracking to measure gaze behaviour to faces displaying posed and genuine smiles. Adults with autism were impaired on the posed/genuine smile task and looked at the eyes significantly less than did controls. Also, within the autism group, task performance correlated with social interaction ability. We conclude that reduced eye contact in autism leads to reduced ability to discriminate genuine from posed smiles with downstream effects on social interaction.

Atypical eye contact in autism: Models, mechanisms and development

“…Some of eye-tracking studies have revealed that individuals with ASD fixate others eyes less than typically developing individuals do whether the face is with direct gaze (Boraston et al, 2008;Dalton et al, 2005;Pelphrey et al, 2002;Spezio et al, 2007c) or looking away from the viewer (Klin et al, 2002;Riby & Hancock, 2008), but other studies failed to replicate (Dapretto et al, 2006;Fletcher-Watson et al, 2009;Rutherford & Towns, 2008;van der Geest et al, 2002) or reported mixed results (Neumann et al, 2006;Speer et al, 2007). Such inconsistencies may result from the differences in task demands and/or the characteristics of stimuli used.…”

“…This is because an atypical pattern of mutual gaze behaviour, or eye contact, is among the most distinguishable manifestation of the qualitative impairment in social interaction in ASD. Since Kanner's first report (Kanner, 1943(Kanner, , 1944, such atypical pattern of eye contact has been reported and discussed in many clinical and experimental settings, including recent studies using eye-tracking methods ( Figure 1, Boraston et al, 2008;Dalton et al, 2005;Pelphrey et al, 2002;Spezio et al, 2007c;Sterling et al, 2008, but see also Dapretto et al, 2006;Rutherford & Towns, 2008;van der Geest et al, 2002). Based on this clinical significance, eye contact is currently included in standardised diagnostic criteria such as DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and ICD-10 (World Health Organization, 1993).…”

The Role of Alexithymia in Reduced Eye-Fixation in Autism Spectrum Conditions

“…These claims are based on the large number of studies documenting reduced attention to faces (Hutt and Ounsted 1966;Trepagnier et al 2002;Riby and Hancock 2008;Sasson et al 2007;Bal et al 2010;Baranek 1999;Chawarska and Shic 2009;Osterling and Dawson 1994;Osterling et al 2002;Hernandez et al 2009) and/or atypical eye fixation in autism (as initially detailed in Kanner's first descriptions of autism, Kanner 1943Kanner , 1944; see also Joseph and Tanaka 2003;Riby and Hancock 2008;Boraston et al 2008;Sterling et al 2008;Jones et al 2008; for a review see Senju and Johnson 2009a). Klin et al (2002) assessed fixation patterns while participants observed emotional movie clips containing social interaction.…”

Analyzing dynamic components of social scene parsing strategy in autism spectrum disorder

“…Static images are frequently served as the visual stimuli. Some reports have suggested that individuals with ASD have poor face recognition and give decreased attention to internal features of faces such as eyes, nose and mouth compared to typical controls [6], [7], [8], [9]. Some others have stated that there is similarity in fixation pattern between individuals with ASD and with typical development [10] al.…”