Atypical scan paths on emotional faces and reduced eye contact represent a prominent feature of autism symptomatology, yet the reason for these abnormalities remains a puzzle. Do individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) fail to orient toward the eyes or do they actively avoid direct eye contact? Here, we used a new task to investigate reflexive eye movements on fearful, happy, and neutral faces. Participants (ASDs: 12; controls: 11) initially fixated either on the eyes or on the mouth. By analyzing the frequency of participants' eye movements away from the eyes and toward the eyes, respectively, we explored both avoidance and orientation reactions. The ASD group showed a reduced preference for the eyes relative to the control group, primarily characterized by more frequent eye movements away from the eyes. Eye-tracking data revealed a pronounced influence of active avoidance of direct eye contact on atypical gaze in ASDs. The combination of avoidance and reduced orientation into an individual index predicted emotional recognition performance. Crucially, this result provides evidence for a direct link between individual gaze patterns and associated social symptomatology. These findings thereby give important insights into the social pathology of ASD, with implications for future research and interventions.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 September 2023.
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#9,479,390
of 34,447,360 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Neuroscience
#10,329
of 23,409 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#51,062
of 152,394 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Neuroscience
#87
of 245 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,447,360 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 23,409 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 55% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 152,394 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 245 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 63% of its contemporaries.
