Eye-Tracking Studies in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Setien-Ramos, Imanol; Lugo‐Marín, Jorge; Gisbert-Gustemps, Laura; Villoria, Emiliano Díez; Magán‐Maganto, María; Canal‐Bedia, Ricardo; Ramos‐Quiroga, Josep Antoni

doi:10.1007/s10803-022-05524-z

Cited by 20 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Indeed, it suggests that socioaffective information processing alterations in SAUD can be traced back to a mechanism as fundamental to social cognition and interpersonal interactions (Cañigueral & Hamilton, 2019; Itier & Batty, 2009) as attentional allocation to key facial features such as the eyes. Interestingly, the magnitude of the reported effects is comparable to those found in other psychiatric conditions primarily marked by social impairments, such as autism (Setien-Ramos et al, 2023) and social anxiety disorder (Günther et al, 2021). Besides further stressing the interpersonal dimension of SAUD, these observations also highlight the transdiagnostic relevance of altered facial attention.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

“…Fourth, experimentally occluding the eyes or mouth reduces EFE recognition performance (Schurgin et al, 2014). Fifth, clinical groups presenting EFE recognition difficulties (i.e., patients with psychiatric, developmental, or neurological disorders) attend less to the eyes or mouth compared to their healthy counterparts (e.g., Günther et al, 2021; Kordsachia et al, 2018; Setien-Ramos et al, 2023; Toh et al, 2011; Waldthaler et al, 2019), suggesting that reduced attention to these areas affects performance.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Altered attentional processing of facial expression features in severe alcohol use disorder: An eye-tracking study.

Pabst,

Bollen,

Masson

et al. 2024

Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science

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Social cognition impairments, and notably emotional facial expression (EFE) recognition difficulties, as well as their functional and clinical correlates, are increasingly documented in severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD). However, insights into their underlying mechanisms are lacking. Here, we tested if SAUD was associated with alterations in the attentional processing of EFEs. In a preregistered study, 40 patients with SAUD and 40 healthy controls (HCs) had to identify the emotional expression conveyed by faces while having their gaze recorded by an eye-tracker. We assessed indices of initial (first fixation locations) and later (number of fixations and dwell-time) attention with reference to regions of interest corresponding to the eyes, mouth, and nose, which carry key information for EFE recognition. We centrally found that patients had less first fixations to key facial features in general, as well as less fixations and dwell time to the eyes specifically, relative to the rest of the face, compared to controls. These effects were invariant across emotional expressions. Additional exploratory analyses revealed that patients with SAUD had a less structured viewing pattern than controls. These results offer novel, direct, evidence that patients with SAUD's socioaffective difficulties already emerge at the facial attentional processing stage, along with precisions regarding the nature and generalizability of the effects. Potential implications for the mechanistic conceptualization and treatment of social cognition difficulties in SAUD are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered attentional processing of facial expression features in severe alcohol use disorder: An eye-tracking study.

Pabst,

Bollen,

Masson

et al. 2024

Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science

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“…Klin et al 8 conducted eye gaze measurements in adolescent cases with high‐functioning autism while watching dialogue scenes in movies and reported that compared to the typical developmental group, the autistic group spent less time looking at the eyes and more time looking at the mouth. Several studies have supported this result 9,10 . Moreover, previous eye‐tracking investigations in ASD have noted impairment of social attention 11 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Gaze measurements during viewing human dialogue scenes in adults with ADHD: Preliminary findings

Nagatsuka,

Nakamura,

Ota

et al. 2023

Neuropsychopharm Rep

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AimEye gaze measurement to human dialogue scenes in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was investigated. We examined whether eye gaze measurement might be a biological marker of ADHD.MethodsTwenty‐two individuals with ADHD (mean age, 34.5 years) attending the outpatient clinic of Showa University Karasuyama Hospital were included in the study, and 26 healthy individuals (mean age, 32.6 years) with no history of mental disorders were used as the control group. For the participants, intellectual functioning was estimated using the Japanese Adult Reading Test, and mental symptoms were assessed using the Autism Spectrum Quotient and Conner's Adult ADHD Rating Scale. We extracted human dialogue scenes from two classic movies as visual stimuli and recorded the participant's gaze while watching these scenes using Tobii's eye tracker.ResultsFor gazing time, repeated measures analysis of variance showed no significant main effect of “group” and no significant interaction effect between “group” and areas of interest “(AOI).” In the normal group, gazing time at the eyes was significantly longer than those at the mouth, body, and background; in the ADHD group, gazing time at the eyes was significantly longer than only that at the background.ConclusionGiven the different results obtained in the past in ASD, these results suggest that it would be necessary to directly compare the two groups to determine whether the gaze measurement shows significant differences in ASD and ADHD.

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“…For instance, atypically low orientation toward others and reduced attention to the eye region are robustly documented early-onset characteristics of autism (W. Jones & Klin, 2013;Zwaigenbaum et al, 2015). Numerous experimental studies, spanning the lifespan of individuals with autism, consistently report atypical-often diminished-attention to social stimuli (for reviews, see Papagiannopoulou et al, 2014;Setien-Ramos et al, 2023). This pattern of social attention is so distinctive in autistic children that it serves as a key feature in widely used clinical assessments, such as the autistim diagnostic observation schedule (ADOS- Lord et al, 2012) or the autism diagnostic interview-revised (ADI-R- Rutter et al, 2003), and is singled out as a potential biomarker of autism (e.g., Murias et al, 2018;Shic et al, 2022).…”

Section: Autismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Similar social attention, physiological arousal, and familiarity effect in autistic and neurotypical children: A real-life recreational eye-tracking paradigm.

Clin,

Miller,

Kissine

2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Social attention is reported to be crucial for the development of social skills, and, according to the social cognitive developmental theory, is fostered by social interactions. Autism is of central importance to the study of social attention, as autism is characterized by atypical social interactions and low social attention, both linked according to the social motivation theory to diminished social interest. Much evidence for positing low social interest in autism comes from eye-tracking studies, which, however, lack ecological validity. Our study documents social attention and physiological arousal, within close to real-life settings, in autistic children, as well as in their neurotypical peers, matched on gender and mental or chronological age. To explore the potential influence of partner familiarity or of the conversational topic, children gaze and electrodermal activity were recorded while they engaged in watercolor activities with, first a familiar and, next, an unfamiliar adult experimenter, who both introduced various topics. Autistic and neurotypical children exhibited comparable attention to their partners' eyes. Notably, across all groups, heightened visual attention was directed to familiar rather than unfamiliar partners. Moreover, parallel arousal patterns emerged, with all children displaying increased skin conductance responses during more engaging topics and when looking at their interactional partner's eyes. These findings underscore the task-and contextdependent nature of social attention and highlight the role of familiarity in an ecologically valid context. The absence of group differences challenges the universality of the social cognitive developmental theory and questions the scope of the social motivation theory of autism.

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Eye-Tracking Studies in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Cited by 20 publications

References 70 publications

Altered attentional processing of facial expression features in severe alcohol use disorder: An eye-tracking study.

Altered attentional processing of facial expression features in severe alcohol use disorder: An eye-tracking study.

Gaze measurements during viewing human dialogue scenes in adults with ADHD: Preliminary findings

Similar social attention, physiological arousal, and familiarity effect in autistic and neurotypical children: A real-life recreational eye-tracking paradigm.

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