Impaired Visual Scanning and Memory for Faces in High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders: It's Not Just the Eyes

Abstract

Prior studies suggest that autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with a domain-specific memory impairment for faces. The underlying cause of this problem and its relation to impaired visual scanning of faces—particularly of the eyes—remains to be determined. We recorded eye movements while 22 high-functioning ASD and 21 typically developing (TD) adolescents encoded and later recognized faces and objects from a single, nonsocial object category (electric fans). Relative to TD subjects, ASD individuals had poorer memory for faces, but not fans. Correlational analyses showed significant relationships between recognition memory and fixations. Eye tracking during encoding revealed that TD subjects made more fixations to faces than fans, whereas ASD individuals did not differ in number of fixations made to each stimulus type. Moreover, although both the TD and ASD groups showed a strong preference for fixating the eyes more than the mouth, the ASD subjects were less likely than TD subjects to scan regions of the face outside of the primary facial features (i.e., eyes, nose, and mouth). We concluded that ASD individuals have a domain-specific memory impairment for faces relative to mechanical objects and that this impairment may be related to abnormal scanning during encoding.

Face Perception and Learning in Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Deficits are most often noted in the presence of memory demands (Weigelt, Koldewyn, & Kanwisher, 2012), and evidence of intact memory for non-face images such as patterns, buildings, and electric fans implies a face-specific deficit rather than a domain-general impairment (Boucher & Lewis, 1992; McPartland, Webb, Keehn, & Dawson, 2011; Snow et al, 2011; Weigelt, Koldewyn, & Kanwisher, 2012). Further disruption is found in tasks utilizing face discrimination (Deruelle, Rondan, Gepner, & Tardif, 2004; Gepner, de Gelder, & de Schonen, 2007; Tantam, Monaghan, Nicholson, & Stirling, 1989) and lip reading, gender and gaze discrimination (Deruelle et al, 2004).…”

The categories, frequencies, and stability of idiosyncratic eye-movement patterns to faces

“…Deviations from characteristic spatial or temporal eye-movement patterns to faces have been shown to reflect disorders including autism spectrum disorders (Kliemann, Dziobek, Hatri, Steimke, & Heekeren, 2010; Klin, Jones, Schultz, Volkmar, & Cohen, 2002; Morris, Pelphrey, & McCarthy, 2007; Pelphrey et al, 2002; Pelphrey, Morris, & McCarthy, 2005; Snow et al, 2011), schizophrenia (Green, Williams, & Davidson, 2003a, 2003b; Manor et al, 1999; M L Phillips & David, 1997; Mary L. Phillips & David, 1997, 1998; Streit, Wölwer, & Gaebel, 1997; Williams, Loughland, Gordon, & Davidson, 1999), bipolar disorder (Bestelmeyer et al, 2006; E. Kim et al, 2009; P.…”

Face Recognition Deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorders Are Both Domain Specific and Process Specific

“…In a recent review, we identified sixteen studies comparing face identity recognition (henceforth referred to as “face recognition) to the recognition of other visual objects in ASD, as needed to test the domain specificity of the deficit. Twelve of these studies report domain-selective deficits in which face recognition was more impaired than recognition of visual patterns [2]–[4], cars [5], [6], buildings [5]–[8], Greebles [9], common objects [9], shoes [10]–[12] and fans [13]. One additional study of 12 adults with ASD found that they performed worse than age-and IQ-matched adults with learning disabilities on memory for faces, but performed at least as well on memory for cats, horses, motorbikes, leaves and buildings [14] (That study also tested a group of adults that were age, but not IQ-matched to the group of adults with ASD.…”

“…Our recent review [1] found that deficits in face recognition in ASD are more often reported in studies with a high memory demand (face memory studies; [4], [7], [13]) than in studies with little or no memory demand (face perception studies; [19], [20]). One study used both a face memory and a face perception task on the same participants, and found that face recognition was more impaired when the faces had to be remembered over a delay than when they did not [10].…”