Sensory salience processing moderates attenuated gazes on faces in autism spectrum disorder: a case-control study.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Matched case-control observational study
PubMed 36759875 · doi:10.1186/s13229-023-00537-6
What was done
Researchers evaluated baseline eye-tracking and pupillometry data from the EU-AIMS Longitudinal European Autism Project (LEAP) in 166 autistic participants (aged 6–30 years, IQ 61–138, 41 females/125 males) and 166 matched neurotypical controls (aged 6–30 years, IQ 63–138, 49 females/117 males). Participants viewed 85 brief movie scenes with humans in social situations or non-human scenes. Sensory salience processing was measured via gazes on physical and motion salience along with pupillary responses (as a proxy for locus coeruleus-norepinephrine phasic activity), while social attention was measured via gazes on faces using manual areas of interest. Linear mixed models adjusted for luminance, gaze behavior, and comorbid psychopathology.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical values or effect sizes directly, but notes that effect sizes were small to moderate. There were no baseline group differences in gazes on salience. Autistic participants showed higher pupillary responses during non-human scenes and lower pupillary responses during human scenes compared to neurotypical controls. Autistic individuals also spent less time gazing at faces across scenes; this altered social attention was influenced by gazes on physical salience and moderated by pupillary responses.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that differences in autonomic arousal and sensory salience processing—linked to locus coeruleus-norepinephrine activity—directly moderate reduced social attention to faces in autism spectrum disorder.
Limits
The naturalistic viewing design lacked experimental manipulation and direct stimulus control. Effect sizes were small to moderate and no exact statistical metrics or confidence intervals were reported in the abstract. Pupillary response serves only as an indirect proxy for central locus coeruleus-norepinephrine activity. Significant covariate effects of age and IQ indicate that findings differ across developmental stages and cognitive subgroups.
Cited by
- supports Social features such as eyes or who is talking have less of a weight on where autistic individuals look compared to distractors.