The Role of Eye Gaze During Natural Social Interactions in Typical and Autistic People

Cañigueral, Roser; Hamilton, Antonia F. de C.

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00560

Cited by 128 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 169 publications

(304 reference statements)

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“…The decision to consider the eye region, as compared to the full face, was based on prior work suggesting that infants would use direct eye contact as a signal for the desire to communicate ( Argyle and Dean 1965 ; Ho et al. 2015 ; Canigueral and Hamilton 2019 ). Additionally, the inclusion of looking to the rest of the face (and thus potential avoidance of eyes) may have actually captured aversion to, rather than a preference for, a particular identity ( Csibra 2010 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impression Formation in the Human Infant Brain

Krol

Großmann

2020

Cerebral Cortex Communications

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Forming an impression of another person is an essential aspect of human social cognition linked to medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) function in adults. The current study examined the neurodevelopmental origins of impression formation by testing the hypothesis that infants rely on processes localized in mPFC when forming impressions about individuals who appear friendly or threatening. Infants’ brain responses were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) while watching four different face identities displaying either smiles or frowns directed toward or away from them (N = 77). This was followed by a looking preference test for these face identities (now displaying a neutral expression) using eyetracking. Our results show that infants’ mPFC responses distinguish between smiling and frowning faces when directed at them and that these responses predicted their subsequent person preferences. This suggests that the mPFC is involved in impression formation in human infants, attesting to the early ontogenetic emergence of brain systems supporting person perception and adaptive behavior.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impression Formation in the Human Infant Brain

Krol

Großmann

2020

Cerebral Cortex Communications

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“…Social attention refers to the ability and motivation to attend to, as well as coordinate attention with, a social partner during interaction (e.g., through joint attention, use of non-verbal gestures, including eye contact, and orientation and focusing of the visual system toward one's partner), and is also known to be atypical in autism (Chita-Tegmark, 2016). Social attention can be modulated through eye gaze, because we send and receive a great deal of social information through use and shifting of gaze (Cañigueral & Hamilton, 2019). It is particularly notable, therefore, that social-communication and ToM impairments in autism are associated with an atypical social attention distribution (Swettenham et al, 1998;Senju, 2013; von dem Hagen, Stoyanova, Rowe, Baron-Cohen, & Calder, 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspective influences eye movements during real-life conversation: Mentalising about self vs. others in autism

Barzy¹,

Hj²,

Williams³

2019

Preprint

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Socio-communication is profoundly impaired among autistic individuals. Difficulties representing others’ mental states have been linked to modulations of gaze and speech, which have also been shown to be impaired in autism. Despite these observed impairments in ‘real-world’ communicative settings, research has mostly focused on lab-based experiments, where the language is highly structured. In a pre-registered experiment, we recorded eye movements and verbal responses while adults (N=50) engaged in a real-life conversation. Conversation topic either related to the self, a familiar other, or an unfamiliar other (e.g. "Tell me who is your/your mother’s/Marina’s favourite celebrity and why?”). Results replicated previous work, showing reduced attention to socially-relevant information among autistic participants (i.e. less time looking at the experimenter’s face, and more time looking around the background), compared to typically-developing controls. Importantly, perspective modulated social attention in both groups; talking about an unfamiliar other reduced attention to potentially distracting or resource demanding social information, and increased looks to non-social background. Social attention did not differ between self and familiar other contexts- reflecting greater shared knowledge for familiar/similar others. Autistic participants spent more time looking at the background when talking about an unfamiliar other vs. themselvesFuture research should investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying this effect.

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“…AOIs comprising the eye region of each facial stimulus were created (Supplemental Figure 1). The decision to consider the eye region, as compared to the full face, was based on prior work suggesting that infants would use direct eye contact as a signal for the desire to communicate (Argyle and Dean 1965, Ho, Foulsham et al 2015, Canigueral and Hamilton 2019. Additionally, the inclusion of looking to the rest of the face (and thus potential avoidance of eyes) may have actually captured aversion to, rather than preference for, a particular identity (Csibra 2010).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impression formation in the human infant brain

Krol¹,

Großmann²

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Forming an impression of another person is an essential aspect of human social cognition linked to medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) function in adults. The current study examined the neurodevelopmental origins of impression formation by testing the hypothesis that infants rely on processes localized in mPFC when forming impressions about friendly versus threatening individuals. Infants’ brain responses were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) while watching four different individuals displaying either smiles or frowns directed toward or away from them (N = 77). This was followed by a person preference test measured by looking behavior using eyetracking. Our results show that infants’ mPFC responses distinguish between friendly and threatening faces when directed at them and that these responses predicted their person preference. This demonstrates that the mPFC is involved in impression formation in human infants, attesting to the early ontogenetic emergence of brain systems supporting person perception and adaptive behavior.

show abstract

The Role of Eye Gaze During Natural Social Interactions in Typical and Autistic People

Cited by 128 publications

References 169 publications

Impression Formation in the Human Infant Brain

Impression Formation in the Human Infant Brain

Perspective influences eye movements during real-life conversation: Mentalising about self vs. others in autism

Impression formation in the human infant brain

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