Spatiotemporal Eye Movement Dynamics Reveal Altered Face Prioritization in Early Visual Processing Among Autistic...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Computational Psychiatry

Background:

• Reduced social attention, particularly to faces, is a core social deficit in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• Qualitative differences in the temporal unfolding of social attention in ASD remain underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate and compare the spatiotemporal dynamics of social attention in children with and without autism.
• To identify distinct eye movement patterns related to social visual processing in ASD.

Main Methods:

• Utilized hidden Markov modeling (HMM) for computational analysis of eye-tracking data.
• Assessed a large cohort of children with ASD (n=280) and neurotypical controls (n=119) aged 6-11.
• Collected longitudinal data across three time points using social eye-tracking assays.

Main Results:

• Identified two common eye movement patterns: 'focused' (small face ROIs, early fixation) and 'exploratory' (larger face ROIs, delayed fixation, non-social ROIs).
• Children with ASD demonstrated significantly more 'exploratory' eye movement patterns compared to neurotypical children across all assays and time points.
• Eye movement patterns correlated with clinical features, including adaptive functioning, face recognition, and autism symptom severity.

Conclusions:

• An 'exploratory' visual attention pattern, characterized by less precise face-gazing, may be a key feature of autism.
• This pattern is associated with core autism symptomology and may reflect reduced visual sensitivity to facial information.
• Understanding these dynamic differences in social attention offers insights into ASD pathophysiology and potential intervention targets.