University of Houston psychology researcher Jason Griffin, who has pioneered new ways of measuring eye movements to understand autism, reports that autistic children focus on faces differently than other children, especially in the early stages of visual processing. His findings may improve face processing for those with the neurodevelopmental condition.
Making eye contact while talking is an essential but often overlooked social convention for many people. It’s a natural part of polite conversation. However, for autistic individuals, who usually experience challenges in social communication and may have difficulty recognizing faces, this can be a significant struggle.
In this study, our main objective was to test the hypothesis that autistic children exhibit distinctly different eye movement patterns during social perception, reports Griffin in Biological Psychiatry.
Griffin utilized new analytic techniques to assess and compare the looking behaviour in a large group of autistic and neurotypical children as they viewed social images.
They found that autistic children prioritize faces differently, mainly when they first see them.
“Our analysis revealed two distinct eye movement patterns that emerged across three social perception tests,” said Griffin. “The first pattern, called the focused pattern, was marked by small regions of interest on the face that captured attention immediately. In contrast, the second, exploratory pattern involved larger regions of interest that included nonsocial objects and did not draw immediate attention.”
Researchers found that autistic children tended to use this explorative method more than the focused eye movement pattern. A decreased likelihood of precisely looking at faces early in visual processing may be an essential feature of autism associated with autism-related symptomology. It may reflect less visual sensitivity to face information.
Griffin’s inspiration
This is not Griffin’s first venture into autism research. He has been involved in this field for years, including five years dedicated to a team that developed a computer-based intervention game for autistic adolescents. The game’s purpose is to help change the players’ eye movements, improving their ability to perceive where another person is looking.
Griffin’s inspiration for all his pioneering research came from home, where he was spurred on by growing up with an autistic brother.
“My brother and I have always been best friends. We grew up together, rode bikes together and played video games together,” said Griffin in a recent article published in Science. “As children, he did not speak or make eye contact much and struggled to interact socially. I do not remember exactly when I knew my brother had autism, but I knew we would be best friends forever because he was my younger brother.”
Griffin’s dedication to autism research has earned him a spot as a finalist for the prestigious NOMIS & Science Young Explorer Award. This award honours young scholars with exceptional boldness and innovation in their scientific inquiries. Griffin will receive recognition for this award at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
The real world
In the Griffin lab, with real life as his mentor, Griffin is progressing in a field of science he calls naturalistic neuroscience—basically, taking things out of the lab into the real world.
“We have kids come in, they look at a computer screen with pictures of faces or social scenes, and we assess how long they look at the face or the eyes,” said Griffin. “This is great science. Don’t get me wrong, but there is an opportunity to explore how some of these processes play out in real-world situations.”
With recent funding from the Autism Science Foundation, Griffin is exploring how we can use mobile eye-tracking technology to understand how autistic children look at faces in real-world situations, like during a face-to-face conversation.
“There’s so much different about being in front of another human. And ultimately, that’s where autistic people and everyone else lives—in the real world,” said Griffin.