How accurate are autistic adults and those high in autistic traits at making face-to-face line-of-sight judgements?

Abstract

Being able to follow the direction of another person’s line-of-sight facilitates social communication. To date, much research on the processes involved in social communication has been conducted using computer-based tasks that lack ecological validity. The current paradigm assesses how accurately participants can follow a social partner’s line-of-sight in a face-to-face scenario. In Study 1, autistic and neurotypical adults were asked to identify which location, on a grid of 36 potential locations, the experimenter was looking at on a series of discrete trials. All participants (both autistic and neurotypical) were able to effectively make line-of-sight judgements, scoring significantly above chance. Participants were also just as effective at making these judgements from either a brief, 1s, glance or from a prolonged, 5s, stare. However, at the group level, autistic participants were significantly less accurate than neurotypical participants overall. In Study 2, potential variation in performance along the broad autism phenotype was considered using the same paradigm. Bayesian analyses demonstrated that line-of-sight judgement accuracy was not related to the amount of autistic traits. Overall, these findings advance the understanding of the mechanistic processes of social communication in relation to autism and autistic traits in a face-to-face setting. Lay abstract In order to effectively understand and consider what others are talking about, we sometimes need to follow their line-of-sight to the location at which they are looking, as this can provide important contextual information regarding what they are saying. If we are not able to follow other people’s line-of-sight, this could result in social communication difficulties. Here we tested how effectively autistic and neurotypical adults are at following a social partner’s line-of-sight during a face-to-face task. In a first study, completed by 14 autistic adult participants of average to above-average verbal ability and 14 neurotypical adult participants, we found that all participants were able to effectively follow the social partner’s line-of-sight. We also found that participants tended to be as effective at making these judgements from both a brief, 1s, glance or a long, 5s, stare. However, autistic adults were less accurate, on average, than neurotypical adults overall. In a second study, a separate group of 65 neurotypical adults completed the same line-of-sight judgement task to investigate whether task performance was related to individual variation in self-reported autistic traits. This found that the amount of self-reported autistic traits was not at all related to people’s ability to accurately make line-of-sight judgements. This research isolates and furthers our understanding of an important component part of the social communication process and assesses it in a real-world context.

The Bidirectional Social-Cognitive Mechanisms of the Social-Attention Symptoms of Autism

“…Some studies report little evidence of differences in the frequency or accuracy of looks to social stimuli (191) inviting the conclusion that social attention is typical in older individuals. However, other studies suggest that social attention remains less efficient or more effortful in older individuals with ASD (156,(192)(193)(194); Liu et al, (in submission). Indeed, one recent study suggests that adolescents with ASD may display less efficient covert processing of eye contact (195).…”

I see you, you see me: the impact of social presence on social interaction processes in autistic and non-autistic people

“…For example, we recently conducted a face-to-face gaze following task where participants were asked to point to the exact location of an experimenter's gaze across a series of carefully paced and timed trials. We observed that both autistic and non-autistic adults were able to effectively follow an experimenter's gaze direction following both long looks and brief glances, though performance of autistic individuals was overall less accurate than neurotypicals [ 46 ]. It is possible that the suggestion that some autistic individuals find direct eye-contact aversive [ 47 , 48 ] may lead to reduced experience with direct eye-contact, and therefore fewer opportunities to practice gaze following in real-life situations.…”

Research on social attention in autism and the challenges of the research domain criteria (RDoC) framework

“…It is clearly the case, though, that measures of social attention are a significant part of the reliable operational diagnostic definition of the preschool phenotype of autism (Mundy & Bullen, 2022). Moreover, beyond the preschool period, social attention can also be reliably and validly measured in children, adolescents and adults with typical development and autism (e.g., Bayliss et al, 2013; Freeth et al, 2020; Freeth & Bugembe, 2019; Gregory & Kessler, 2022; Grynszpan et al, 2019; Mundy et al, 2016; Nowell et al, 2020; Oberwelland et al, 2016), as well as among individuals who exhibit the broad autism phenotype (Elsabbagh et al, 2009; Morgan et al, 2023; Nayar et al, 2022; Swanson et al, 2013; Swanson & Siller, 2014; Zhao et al, 2017). Recent research also suggests that social attention measures may be sensitive to sex differences in autism (Charwarska et al, 2016; Harrop et al, 2020).…”

“…Latency measures can be used to assess the effort associated with social attention/joint attention (Gredebäck et al, 2010; Oberwelland et al, 2016; Vaughn Van Hecke et al, 2012). This is notable because research suggests that social‐attention may remain less efficient or more effortful in older autistic individuals and those who exhibit the broad autism phenotype (Birmingham et al, 2017; Freeth et al, 2020), as well as in social interactions involving higher perceptual or cognitive load (Haskins et al, 2022; Hernandez et al, 2020). Thus, with development children and adults with autism may be better able to engage in social attention, but this may require greater effort which taxes the adaptive and effective use of social attention in social communication or didactic learning interactions (Mundy & Bullen, 2022).…”