Positive and negative gaze perception in autism spectrum conditions

Social Neuroscience

Volumn 4, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 153-164

  Ashwin, Chris ^a   Ricciardelli, Paola ^b   Baron Cohen, Simon ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MILANO BICOCCA   (Italy)

Author keywords

Asperger syndrome; Autism; Gaze; Gaze perception; Sex differences; Social attention

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE; ATTENTION; AUTISTIC DISORDER; FIXATION, OCULAR; HUMANS; MALE; ORIENTATION; PATTERN RECOGNITION, VISUAL; PHOTIC STIMULATION; PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS; REACTION TIME; SOCIAL PERCEPTION; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 62149139659     PISSN: 17470919     EISSN: 17470927     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/17470910802337902     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Adrien, J. L., Lenoir, P., Martineau, J., Perrot, A., Hameury, L. Larmande, C. et al. (1993) Blind ratings of early symptoms of autism based upon family home movies. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 32, pp. 617-626.
2. Anstis, S., Mayhew, J. and Morley, T. (1969) The perception of where a face or a television "portrait" is looking. American Journal of Psychology, 82, pp. 474-489.
3. American Psychiatric Association (1994) DSM-IV Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Washington, DC
4. Ashwin, C., Suckling, J., Wheelwright, S., Wicker, B., Bullmore, E. T. and Baron-Cohen, S. Neural mechanisms for gaze work harder in autism: An fMRI investigation of gaze perception.
5. Baird, G., Charman, T., Baron-Cohen, S., Cox, A., Swettenham, J. Wheelwright, S. et al. (2000) A screening instrument for autism at 18 months of age: A 6-year follow-up study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 39:6, pp. 694-702.
6. Baron-Cohen, S. (1989) Joint attention deficits in autism: Towards a cognitive analysis. Development and Psychopathology, 1, pp. 185-189.
7. Baron-Cohen, S. (1995) Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind, Boston
8. Baron-Cohen, S. (2002) The extreme male brain theory of autism. Trends in Cognitive Science, 6:6, pp. 248-254.
9. Baron-Cohen, S. (2003) The essential difference: Men, women and the extreme male brain, Penguin Books, London
10. Baron-Cohen, S. and Cross, P. (1992) Reading the eyes: Evidence for the role of perception in the development of a theory of mind. Mind and Language, 6, pp. 173-186.
11. Baron-Cohen, S. and Hammer, J. (1997) Is autism an extreme form of the male brain?. Advances in Infancy Research, 11, pp. 193-217.
12. Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Hill, J., Raste, Y. and Plumb, I. (2001) The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test revised version: A study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42:2, pp. 241-251.
13. Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S. and Jolliffe, T. (1997) Is there a "language of the eyes"? Evidence from normal adults and adults with autism or Asperger syndrome. Visual Cognition, 4, pp. 311-331.
14. Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J. and Clubley, E. (2001) The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger syndrome/high- functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31:1, pp. 5-17.
15. Batki, A., Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Connellan, J. and Ahluwalia, J. (2001) How important are the eyes in neonatal face perception?. Infant Behavior and Development, 23, pp. 223-229.
16. Bayliss, A. P. and Tipper, S. (2005) Gaze and arrow cueing of attention reveals individual differences along the autism spectrum as a function of target context. British Journal of Psychology, 96, pp. 95-114.
17. Boddaert, N., Chabane, N., Gervais, H., Good, C. D., Bourgeois, M. Plumet, M. H. et al. (2004) Superior temporal sulcus anatomical abnormalities in childhood autism: A voxel-based morphometry MRI study. NeuroImage, 23:1, pp. 364-369.
18. Calder, A. J., Beaver, J. D., Winston, J. S., Dolan, R. J., Jenkins, R. Eger, E. et al. (2007) Separate coding of different gaze directions in the superior temporal sulcus and inferior parietal lobule. Current Biology, 17, pp. 20-25.
19. Castelli, F., Frith, C., Happe, F. and Frith, U. (2002) Autism, Asperger syndrome and brain mechanisms for the attribution of mental states to animated shapes. Brain, 125:8, pp. 1839-1849.
20. Charman, T. (2003) Why is joint attention a pivotal skill in autism?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, pp. 315-324.
21. Cline, M. G. (1967) The perception of where a person is looking. American Journal of Psychology, 80, pp. 41-50.
22. Darwin, C. The expression of emotions in man and animals, Chicago
23. Dawson, G., Toth, K., Abbott, R., Osterling, J., Munson, J. and Estes, A. (2004) Defining the early social attention impairments in autism: Social orienting, joint attention, and responses to emotions. Developmental Psychology, 40, pp. 271-283.
24. Dichter, G. S. and Belger, A. (2007) Social stimuli interfere with cognitive control in autism. NeuroImage, 35, pp. 1219-1230.
25. Emery, N. J. (2000) The eyes have it: The neuroethology, function and evolution of social gaze. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 24:6, pp. 581-604.
26. Farroni, T., Johnson, M. H. and Csibra, G. (2004) Mechanisms of eye gaze perception during infancy. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16:8, pp. 1320-1326.
27. Frith, U. (2003) Autism: Explaining the enigma, Oxford
28. Gibson, J. and Pick, A. (1963) Perception of another person's looking behavior. American Journal of Psychology, 76, pp. 386-394.
29. Hall, J. A. (1978) Gender effects in decoding nonverbal cues. Psychological Bulletin, 85, pp. 845-858.
30. Haxby, J. V., Hoffman, E. A. and Gobbini, M. I. (2000) The distributed human neural system for face perception. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4:6, pp. 223-233.
31. Hobson, R. P., Ouston, J. and Lee, A. (1988) What's in a face? The case of autism. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 79, pp. 441-453.
32. Hoffman, E. A. and Haxby, J. V. (2000) Distinct representations of eye gaze and identity in the distributed human neural system for face perception. Nature Neuroscience, 3:1, pp. 80-84.
33. Howard, M. A., Cowell, P. E., Boucher, J., Broks, P., Mayes, A. Farrant, A. et al. (2000) Convergent neuroanatomical and behavioural evidence of an amygdala hypothesis of autism. NeuroReport, 11:13, pp. 2931-2935.
34. Hutt, C. and Ounsted, C. (1970) Gaze aversion and its significance in childhood autism. Behaviour Studies in Psychiatry, pp. 103-120. Pergamon Press, Oxford
35. Joseph, R. M. and Tanaka, J. (2003) Holistic and part-based face recognition in children with autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44:4, pp. 529-542.
36. Kanner, L. (1943) Autistic disturbance of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, pp. 217-250.
37. Klin, A., Jones, W., Schultz, R., Volkmar, F. and Cohen, D. (2002) Visual fixation patterns during viewing of naturalistic social situations as predictors of social competence in individuals with autism. Archives of General Psychiatry, 59:9, pp. 809-816.
38. Kobayashi, H. and Kohshima, S. (1997) Unique morphology of the human eye. Nature, 387:6635, pp. 767-768.
39. Kylliainen, A. and Hietanen, J. K. (2004) Attention orienting by another's gaze direction in children with autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45:3, pp. 435-444.
40. Langton, S. R. and Bruce, V. (2000) You must see the point: Automatic processing of cues to the direction of social attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26:2, pp. 747-757.
41. Langton, S. R., Watt, R. J. and Bruce, I. I. (2000) Do the eyes have it? Cues to the direction of social attention. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4:2, pp. 50-59.
42. Leekam, S., Baron-Cohen, S., Brown, S., Perrett, D. and Milders, M. (1997) Eye-direction detection: A dissociation between geometric and joint-attention skills in autism. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15, pp. 77-95.
43. Materna, S., Dicke, P. W. and Thier, P. (2008) Dissociable roles of the superior temporal sulcus and the intraparietal sulcus in joint attention: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, pp. 108-119.
44. Nation, K. and Penny, S. (2008) Sensitivity to eye gaze in autism: Is it normal? Is it automatic? Is it social?. Development and Psychopathology, 20, pp. 79-97.
45. Ohnishi, T., Matsuda, H., Hashimoto, T., Kunihiro, T., Nishikawa, M. Uema, T. et al. (2000) Abnormal regional cerebral blood flow in childhood autism. Brain, 123:9, pp. 1838-1844.
46. Osterling, J. and Dawson, G. (1994) Early recognition of children with autism: A study of first birthday home videotapes. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24, pp. 247-257.
47. Pelphrey, K. A., Adolphs, R. and Morris, J. P. (2004) Neuroanatomical substrates of social cognition dysfunction in autism. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 10:4, pp. 259-271.
48. Pelphrey, K. A., Morris, J. P. and McCarthy, G. (2004) Grasping the intentions of others: The perceived intention of an action influences activity in the superior temporal sulcus during social perception. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, pp. 1706-1716.
49. Pelphrey, K. A., Morris, J. P. and McCarthy, G. (2005) Neural basis of eye-gaze processing deficits in autism. Brain, 128:5, pp. 1038-1048.
50. Pelphrey, K. A., Singerman, J. D., Allison, T. and McCarthy, G. (2003) Brain activation evoked by perception of gaze shifts: The influence of context. Neuropsychologia, 41, pp. 156-170.
51. Pylyshyn, Z. (1999) Is vision continuous with cognition? The case for cognitive impenetrability of visual perception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, pp. 341-423.
52. Ricciardelli, P., Baylis, G. and Driver, J. (2000) The positive and negative of human expertise in gaze perception. Cognition, 77, pp. B1-B14.
53. Saxe, R. and Kanwisher, N. (2003) People thinking about thinking people: The role of the temporo-parietal junction in "theory of mind". NeuroImage, 19:4, pp. 1835-1842.
54. Saxe, R. and Powell, L. J. (2006) It's the thought that counts: Specific brain regions for one component of theory of mind. Psychological Science, 17, pp. 692-699.
55. Saxe, R., Xiao, D. K., Kovacs, G., Perrett, D. I. and Kanwisher, N. (2004) A region of right posterior superior temporal sulcus responds to observed intentional actions. Neuropsychologia, 42:11, pp. 1435-1446.
56. Senju, A., Kikuchi, Y., Hasegawa, T., Tojo, Y. and Osanai, H. (2008) Is anyone looking at me? Direct gaze detection in children with and without autism. Brain and Cognition, 67:2, pp. 127-139.
57. Senju, A., Tojo, Y., Dairoku, H. and Hasegawa, T. (2004) Reflexive orienting in response to eye gaze and an arrow in children with and without autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45:3, pp. 445-458.
58. Senju, A., Tojo, Y., Yaguchi, K. and Hasegawa, T. (2005) Deviant gaze processing in children with autism: An ERP study. Neuropsychologia, 43:9, pp. 1297-1306.
59. Senju, A., Yaguchi, K., Tojo, Y. and Hasegawa, T. (2003) Eye contact does not facilitate detection in children with autism. Cognition, 89:1, pp. B43-B51.
60. Sigman, M., Mundy, P., Ungerer, J. and Sherman, T. (1986) Social interactions of autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children and their caregivers. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27, pp. 647-656.
61. Sinha, P. (2000) Here's looking at you, kid. Perception, 29, pp. 1005-1008.
62. Swettenham, J. (2001) Children with autism show subtle difficulties detecting eye direction
63. Swettenham, J., Condie, S., Campbell, R., Milne, E. and Coleman, M. (2003) Does the perception of moving eyes trigger reflexive visual orienting in autism?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, pp. 325-334.
64. Tinbergen, N. and Tinbergen, E. (1983) Autistic children: New hope for a cure, George Allen and Unwin, London
65. Volkmar, F. and Mayes, L. (1990) Gaze behaviour in autism. Development and Psychopathology, 2, pp. 61-69.
66. von Grunau, M. and Anston, C. (1995) The detection of gaze direction: A stare-in-the-crowd effect. Perception, 24, pp. 1297-1313.
67. Wallace, S., Coleman, M., Pascalis, O. and Bailey, A. (2006) A study of impaired judgment of eye-gaze direction and related face-processing deficits in autism spectrum disorders. Perception, 35:12, pp. 1651-1664.
68. Wechsler, D. (1999) Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, The Psychological Corporation, San Antonio, TX
69. Wicker, B., Michel, F., Henaff, M. A. and Decety, J. (1998) Brain regions involved in the perception of gaze: A PET study. NeuroImage, 8:2, pp. 221-227.
70. Young, A. W. (1998) Face and mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford
71. Zilbovicius, M., Meresse, I., Chabane, N., Brunelle, F., Samson, Y. and Boddaert, N. (2006) Autism, the superior temporal sulcus and social perception. Trends in Neuroscience, 29, pp. 359-366.