Delayed gaze shifts away from others’ eyes in children and adolescents with social anxiety disorder

Kleberg, Johan Lundin; Högström, Jens; Sundström, Karin; Frick, Andreas; Serlachius, Eva

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2020.09.022

Cited by 23 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Other individual characteristics, rather than autism diagnosis, might be a better indicator of attention shifting variability in autistic, and potentially NA , adults. For instance, previous research suggest that alexithymia may be a better predictor of other atypicalities that have been related to autism (e.g., Bird, Press, & Richardson, 2011) Moreover, the NA group in the current sample was not screened for other neurodevelopmental conditions or diagnoses.Were the individuals in both groups in this study, for example, highly socially anxious, differences may have been masked due to in delayed social disengagement associated with social anxiety (Kleberg, Högström, Sundström, Frick, & Serlachius, 2021). Whilst out of the scope for the current study, it is important to further investigate what other individual characteristics maybe be better suited to predict atypical social attention.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional shifting differences in autism: Domain general, domain specific or both?

Skripkauskaitė

Slade

Mayer

2021

Autism

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Atypical attention is considered to have an important role in the development of autism. Yet, it remains unclear whether these attentional difficulties are specific to the social domain. This study aimed to examine attentional orienting in autistic and non-autistic adults from and to non-social and social stimuli. We utilised a modified gap–overlap task with schematic images (Experiment 1: autistic = 27 and non-autistic = 26) and photographs (Experiment 2: autistic = 18 and non-autistic = 17). Eye-tracking data (i.e. saccadic latencies) were then compared across condition and type of stimulus (social or non-social) using multilevel modelling. Autistic adults exhibited mostly typical gap and overlap effects, as well as a bias towards social stimuli. Yet, autistic participants benefitted from exogenous disengagement when orienting to social information more than non-autistic participants. Neither a domain general nor social domain–specific account for attentional atypicalities in autism was supported separately. Yet, subtle combined domain differences were revealed in the gap condition. Lay abstract Previous research has shown that autistic individuals look at other people less and orient to them more slowly than others. Yet, it is still unclear if this represents general visual differences (e.g. slower looking at any new information, social or not) or a uniquely social difference (e.g. only slower looking to humans but not objects). Here, we aimed to examine how quickly autistic and non-autistic adults look to and away from social (i.e. faces) and non-social information (i.e. squares and houses). We used an attentional shifting task with two images where sometimes the first image disappears before the new image appears (makes it easier to notice the new image) and other times it stays on the screen when the new image appears. In Experiment 1, we showed schematic faces and squares to 27 autistic and 26 non-autistic adults, and in Experiment 2, we showed photographs of faces and houses to 18 autistic and 17 non-autistic adults. In general, autistic adults looked at the new non-social or social images similarly to non-autistic adults. Yet, only autistic adults looked at new social information faster when the first image disappeared before the new image appeared. This shows that autistic individuals may find it easier to notice new social information if their attention is not already occupied.

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Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional shifting differences in autism: Domain general, domain specific or both?

Skripkauskaitė

Slade

Mayer

2021

Autism

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“…In line with previous studies (e.g. [35,55]), saccades landing outside any of the cued areas were therefore not included in the analyses.…”

Section: Dependent Variablesmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Details about the sample are reported in previous publications [47,48]. The second group (n = 41; mean age 14.28, SD = 2.43) were recruited from the Swedish tax registry (for details about the sample, see [35]) and initially included as a control group in a study on social anxiety disorder. Participants had no medical or psychiatric diagnoses according to parental report.…”

Section: Two Additional Infants Were Excluded Because Of a Lack Of Valid Data (See Data Processing)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eyes attract quick and automatic gaze shifts from infancy and onwards [32,33], a process believed to be supported by a specialized brain network including the amygdala [33,34], a brain region with altered functional and structural properties in WS [19,20]. Altered eye contact is observed already during the earliest time stages of processing in disorders affecting social interaction such as social anxiety disorder [35] and autism [36]. To understand eye-contact processing in WS, it is therefore important to use methods with high temporal resolution, such as eye tracking.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Williams syndrome: Reduced attention to other’s eyes in a hypersocial phenotype

Jl¹,

Riby²,

Fawcett³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder which leads to high social motivation as well as intellectual disability and difficulties with social interaction. Attention to others’ eyes is crucial for social understanding. Individuals with WS are typically highly attentive to faces, but there is a lack of knowledge about how they attend to other’s eyes, and the mechanisms underlying potential alterations in behavior. It has been suggested that physiological hypo-arousal enables individuals with WS to maintain their gaze longer at other’s faces. The aim of this study was to better understand if there is atypical gaze behavior among individuals with WS which might underlie their reduced social understanding and related difficulties with social interaction. We examined the speed and likelihood of gaze shifts to and from other’s eyes in individuals with WS (n = 37; mean age 23 years), and controls (n = 167) in stratified age groups (7 months, 8-12 years, 13-17 years, adults). Peak saccadic velocity was studied as an index of arousal. Individuals with WS were less likely, and slower, to orient to the eyes compared with typically developing controls in all age groups from eight years of age but did not differ from 7-month-old infants. Peak saccadic velocity was reduced in WS, replicating previous results of hypo-arousal. The results were supported by both frequentist and Bayesian statistics. Despite the hyper-social behavioral phenotype, WS is associated with reduced attention to others’ eyes. This could contribute to the difficulties with complex social interaction observed in WS.

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“…So far, a small number of eye-tracking studies have been conducted in children and adolescents with SAD (36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42). These studies examined the relative distribution of attention between threat-related faces and other stimuli during free viewing tasks.…”

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confidence: 99%

Restricted Visual Scanpaths During Emotion Recognition in Childhood Social Anxiety Disorder

et al. 2021

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Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) has its typical onset in childhood and adolescence. Maladaptive processing of social information may contribute to the etiology and maintenance of SAD. During face perception, individuals execute a succession of visual fixations known as a scanpath which facilitates information processing. Atypically long scanpaths have been reported in adults with SAD, but no data exists from pediatric samples. SAD has also been linked to atypical arousal during face perception. Both metrics were examined in one of the largest eye-tracking studies of pediatric SAD to date.Methods: Participants were children and adolescents with SAD (n = 61) and healthy controls (n = 39) with a mean age of 14 years (range 10–17) who completed an emotion recognition task. The visual scanpath and pupil dilation (an indirect index of arousal) were examined using eye tracking.Results: Scanpaths of youth with SAD were shorter, less distributed, and consisted of a smaller number of fixations than those of healthy controls. These findings were supported by both frequentist and Bayesian statistics. Higher pupil dilation was also observed in the SAD group, but despite a statistically significant group difference, this result was not supported by the Bayesian analysis.Conclusions: The results were contrary to findings from adult studies, but similar to what has been reported in neurodevelopmental conditions associated with social interaction impairments. Restricted scanpaths may disrupt holistic representation of faces known to favor adaptive social understanding.

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Delayed gaze shifts away from others’ eyes in children and adolescents with social anxiety disorder

Cited by 23 publications

References 56 publications

Attentional shifting differences in autism: Domain general, domain specific or both?

Attentional shifting differences in autism: Domain general, domain specific or both?

Williams syndrome: Reduced attention to other’s eyes in a hypersocial phenotype

Restricted Visual Scanpaths During Emotion Recognition in Childhood Social Anxiety Disorder

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