Defining and Quantifying the Social Phenotype in Autism

Klin, Ami; Jones, Warren R.; Schultz, Robert T.; Volkmar, Fred R.; Cohen, Donald J.

doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.159.6.895

Cited by 374 publications

(279 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…False belief tasks, although the gold standard for measuring ToM, are very structured experimental tasks which do not represent the way we mentalise in everyday life (Klin et al, 2002a). Everyday social interaction is unstructured, fluid, and spontaneous and automatic mentalising is necessary for successful social interaction (Senju et al, 2010).…”

Section: Links Between Gaze Behaviour and Other Aspects Of Socio-cognmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention during social interaction in children with autism: Comparison to specific language impairment, typical development, and links to social cognition

Hanley

Riby

McCormack

et al. 2014

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Eye-tracking studies have shown how people with autism spend significantly less time looking at socially relevant information on-screen compared to those developing typically. This has been suggested to impact on the development of socio-cognitive skills in autism. We present novel evidence of how attention atypicalities in children with autism extend to reallife interaction, in comparison to typically developing (TD) children and children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). We explored the allocation of attention during social interaction with an interlocutor, and how aspects of attention (awareness checking) related to traditional measures of social cognition (false belief attribution). We found divergent attention allocation patterns across the groups in relation to social cognition ability. Even though children with autism and SLI performed similarly on the socio-cognitive tasks, there were syndrome-specific atypicalities of their attention patterns. Children with SLI were most similar to TD children in terms of prioritizing attention to socially pertinent information (eyes, face, awareness checking). Children with autism showed reduced attention to the eyes and face, and slower awareness checking. This study provides unique and timely insight into real-world social gaze (a)typicality in autism, SLI and typical development, its relationship to socio-cognitive ability, and raises important issues for intervention.

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Section: Links Between Gaze Behaviour and Other Aspects Of Socio-cognmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention during social interaction in children with autism: Comparison to specific language impairment, typical development, and links to social cognition

Hanley

Riby

McCormack

et al. 2014

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

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“…For example, it is known that individuals with autism have a limited capacity for social adaptation (Klin et al, 2002) and orient more to objects than to faces . But it is possible that the social deficit and the perceptual disorder work in tandem: the lack of experience and the inadequate attention to faces may limit the acquisition of the normal configural perceptual skill.…”

Section: Preference For Local Information In Autismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…"I often get into embarrassing situations because I do not remember faces unless I have seen the people many times or they have a very distinct facial feature such as a big beard, Autism is a developmental disorder that is associated with a number of characteristic deficits, most notably in the domains of social interaction, communication and imaginative behavior (Frith, 2003;Klin, Jones, Schultz, Volkmar, & Cohen, 2002;Volkmar, Lord, Bailey, Schultz, & Klin, 2004). It is further defined by the finding that most autistic individuals exhibit a restricted and repetitive behavioral repertoire.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Configural processing in autism and its relationship to face processing

et al. 2006

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Studies of the perceptual performance of individuals with autism have focused, to a large extent, on two domains of visual behavior, one associated with face processing and the other associated with global or holistic processing. Whether autistic individuals differ from neurotypical individuals in these domains is debatable and, moreover, the relationship between the behaviors in these two domains remains unclear. We first compared the face processing ability of 14 adult individuals with autism with that of neurotypical controls and showed that the autistic individuals were slowed in their speed of face discrimination. We then showed that the two groups differed in their ability to derive the global whole in two different tasks, one using hierarchical compound letters and the other using a microgenetic primed matching task with geometric shapes, with the autistic group showing a bias in favor of local information. A significant correlation was also observed between performance on the face task and the configural tasks. We then confirmed the prediction that the ability to derive the global whole is not only critical for faces but also for other objects as well, as the autistic individuals performed more slowly than the control group in discriminating between objects. Taken together, the results suggest that the bias for local processing seen in autistic individuals might have an adverse impact on their ability to process faces and objects.

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“…Individuals who have difficulty with face processing during development, such as individuals with autism, also have significant difficulties with social interaction. (Klin et al, 2002). Given that face processing appears to be such a rapid and seemingly effortless process in normal adults, it has been of great interest to cognitive neuroscience researchers.…”

Section: Face Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of structure and function in the infant brain: Implications for cognition, language and social behaviour

Paterson

Heim

Friedman

et al. 2006

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

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Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience have allowed us to begin investigating the development of both structure and function in the infant brain. However, despite the rapid evolution of technology, surprisingly few studies have examined the intersection between brain and behaviour over the first years of life. Even fewer have done so in the context of a particular research question. This paper aims to provide an overview of four domains that have been studied using techniques amenable to elucidating the brain/behaviour interface: language, face processing, object permanence, and joint attention, with particular emphasis on studies focusing on early development. The importance of the unique role of development and the interplay between structure and function is stressed throughout. It is hoped that this review will serve as a catalyst for further thinking about the substantial gaps in our understanding of the relationship between brain and behaviour across development. Further, our aim is to provide ideas about candidate brain areas that are likely to be implicated in particular behaviours or cognitive domains.

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Defining and Quantifying the Social Phenotype in Autism

Abstract: Advances in the area will require increased consideration of processes underlying experimental results and a closer approximation of experimental methods to the naturalistic demands inherent in real-life social situations.

Cited by 374 publications

References 56 publications

Attention during social interaction in children with autism: Comparison to specific language impairment, typical development, and links to social cognition

Attention during social interaction in children with autism: Comparison to specific language impairment, typical development, and links to social cognition

Configural processing in autism and its relationship to face processing

Development of structure and function in the infant brain: Implications for cognition, language and social behaviour

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