No Influence of Emotional Faces or Autistic Traits on Gaze-Cueing in General Population

Abstract

The present study addressed the controversial issue of whether autistic traits in the general population are associated with the automatic and fundamental aspects of joint attention through eye gaze. Specifically, we examined whether the degree of autistic traits is associated with the magnitude of reflexive attention orienting in the direction of another’s eye gaze embedded in neutral and emotional (angry, fearful, and happy) faces. The cue stimuli changed gaze direction and facial expressions simultaneously. Participants were asked to detect a target that appeared at the left or right of the cue stimuli. The results revealed a robust gaze-cueing effect, such that the reaction time to the target was shorter under the gazed-at-target condition than under the non-gazed-at-target condition. However, emotional expressions did not modulate the gaze-cueing effect. Furthermore, individual differences in autistic traits and emotional characteristics (social anxiety, alexithymia, and emotional disturbances) did not influence the magnitude of the gaze-cueing effect. Although the ability to orient attention in the direction of another’s gaze is a fundamental function of social development, the gaze-cueing effect measured in a controlled experiment might not be an elaborate representation of the current social cognitive function, at least in typically developing adults.

Unconscious and Conscious Gaze-Triggered Attentional Orienting: Distinguishing Innate and Acquired Components of Social Attention in Children and Adults with Autistic Traits and Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…It occurs earlier (e.g., it is reliably observed at the SOA of 200 ms) and extends over the SOA of 600 ms in adults [ 69 ]. Consistent with previous studies, it is not consistently found diminished in adults with ASD [ 36 – 38 ], nor does it demonstrate a clear association with individual autistic traits [ 105 , 106 ]. We speculate that this may be attributed to the influences of other two factors in social attention.…”

No effect of autistic traits on social attention: evidence based on single-cue and conflicting-cues scenarios

“…Specifically, individuals with high autistic traits exhibited the capacity to use individual gaze cues to orient their attention, and they were also proficient in following majority social gaze cues in conflicting social scenarios. Despite our discrepancy with certain research findings [ 27 – 29 ], similar findings were reported in another single cue task, where individuals with high and low autistic traits demonstrated comparable abilities in social attention [ 43 , 44 ]. The absence of differences in gaze cue effects between individuals with high and low autistic traits may stem from the possibility that those with high autistic traits employ compensatory non-social strategies during the gaze-cueing task.…”

Effect of race on Gaze Cueing in adults with high and low autistic traits

“…First of all, the imbalance in terms of the numerosity between female and male participants. However, many studies in the GCE literature present a gender imbalance, which should be acknowledged (e.g., [27,45,46]) and tested a much smaller sample than the one reported in the present paper [47].…”