Attentional Characteristics of Infants and Toddlers With Williams Syndrome During Triadic Interactions

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to consider the looking behavior of infants and toddlers with Williams syndrome (WS). In Study 1,the looking behavior of a 10-month-old girl with WS during play sessions with her mother and with a stranger was compared to that of 2 groups of infants who were developing normally (ND),1 matched for chronological age and the other for developmental age. The infant with WS spent more than twice as much time looking at her mother as the infants in either contrast group did. She also spent twice as much time looking at the stranger. In addition, during 78%of this time, her gaze at the stranger was coded as extremely intense. Looks of this intensity were virtually never made by the ND infants. In Study 2,the looking behavior of 31 individuals with WS ages 8 to 43 months during a genetics evaluation was compared to that of 319 control children in the same age range (242 with developmental delay due to causes other than WS).Twenty-three of the 25 participants with WS aged 33 months or younger demonstrated extended and intense looking at the geneticist. In contrast, none of the control participants looked extensively or intently at the geneticist. Findings are discussed in the context of previous research on arousal and focused attention during normal development and on temperament and personality of older children and adults with WS. It is argued that the unusual looking patterns evidenced by infants and toddlers with WS presage the unusual temperament and personality of older individuals with WS, and the possibility of a genetic basis for these behaviors is addressed.

Do Faces Capture the Attention of Individuals with Williams Syndrome or Autism? Evidence from Tracking Eye Movements

“…The current results suggest that the way that faces capture the attention of individuals with WS is typical, and support the notion that it is attention disengagement difficulties that are central to the prolonged face gaze shown by individuals with WS (e.g. Mervis et al, 2003). In both tasks there was a lack of scene scanning (evident by reduced time spent fixating on non-face regions of scenes) by individuals with WS (see Figure 2b) suggesting that once the face was fixated upon, individuals with the disorder did not disengage from this to view other aspects of the picture (Figure 3b).…”

“…However, once a face has captured the attention of an individual with WS atypicalities of gaze behaviour occur; evidenced by prolonged face fixations as well as exaggerated face gaze. Evidence that individuals with WS spend longer than typical looking at faces provides empirical support to observational evidence (Mervis et al, 2003), interview evidence (Doherty-Sneddon et al, submitted) as well as eye-tracking tasks (Riby & Hancock, 2008;Riby & Hancock, submitted). The length of face fixations needs to be explored further, with greater emphasis on the attention mechanisms being employed by individuals with WS.…”

“…Karmiloff-Smith et al, 2004;Riby, Doherty-Sneddon & Bruce, 2008a). Eye-tracking evidence illustrates atypicalities of gaze behaviour towards the faces of human actors (Riby & Hancock, 2008;Riby & Hancock, submitted), corroborating evidence of prolonged face gaze (Mervis et al, 2003;DohertySneddon et al, submitted). It is likely that the way individuals with WS attend to socially relevant information is directly related to their socio-cognitive skills.…”

“…Whilst individuals with autism are typically characterised by social withdrawal and a lack of desire to engage in social interactions (Frith, 1989;DSM IV, APA 1994), individuals with WS are associated with a drive towards social engagement, often labelled as 'hyper-sociability' or a 'pro-social compulsion' (Frigerio et al, 2006). They show a desire to interact with people whether they are familiar or unfamiliar to them (Doyle et al, 2004), as well as a propensity to hold prolonged face gaze during social interactions (Mervis et al, 2003) and interview conditions (Doherty-Sneddon, Riby, Calderwood, & Ainsworth, submitted). People with WS are often described as empathetic and sociable (Gosch & Pankau, 1997) although the way they interpret socially relevant facial cues of emotion, and encode faces for identity, does not appear typical (e.g.…”

An Experiment of Nature: Brain Anatomy Parallels Cognition and Behavior in Williams Syndrome

“…As suggested in studies of nonhuman primates (Lawler and Cowey, 1986), the reduced volume and gray matter density within regions comprising this secondary visual pathway may contribute to WS deficits in stereopsis and visual acuity (Atkinson et al, 2001) as well as an unusually "intense" gaze when interacting with others (Mervis et al, 2003). Similarly, the parahippocampal region is an essential component of the neural system underlying visual-spatial processing and memory (Aguirre et al, 1998;Epstein and Kanwisher, 1998;Ranganath and D'Esposito, 2001;Davachi et al, 2003).…”