Eye-tracking study identifies unique face processing in autism

University of Houston psychology researcher Jason Griffin, who has pioneered new ways of measuring eye movements to understand autism spectrum disorder, is reporting that children with autism focus on faces differently than other children, especially in the early stages of visual processing. His findings may lead to improvement in face processing for those with the neurodevelopmental condition.

For most people, looking eye-to-eye with someone while talking seems an important yet innocuous social convention – one barely thought of during polite conversation. But for those with autism, characterized by differences in social communication, including reduced facial recognition, the struggle is real.

“In this study, our primary goal was to test the hypothesis that children with autism display qualitatively distinct eye movement patterns during social perception,” reports Griffin in Biological Psychiatry.

Griffin utilized new analytic techniques to assess and compare the looking behavior in a large group of autistic and neurotypical children as they viewed social images.

They found that children with autism prioritize faces in different ways, particularly when they first see them. 

Our analysis supported the existence of two eye movement patterns that emerged across three social perception assays. A focused pattern was characterized by small face regions of interest that captured looking immediately. In contrast, an exploratory pattern was characterized by larger face regions of interest that included nonsocial objects and did not capture looking immediately” 

Jason Griffin, psychology researcher, University of Houston 

Researchers found that autistic children were more likely to use this explorative method compared to the focused eye movement pattern. Decreased likelihood of precisely looking at faces early in visual processing may be an important feature of autism that is associated with autism-related symptomology and may reflect less visual sensitivity to face information.

Griffin’s inspiration 

This is not Griffin’s first foray into the world of autism research. He’s been at it for many years, spending five of those years working on a team to develop a computer-based intervention game for autistic adolescents to play. It’s designed to change their eye movements to improve their perception of where another person is looking.

Griffin’s inspiration for all his pioneering research came from home, 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 commitment and contributions to autism research made him a finalist for the prestigious NOMIS & Science Young Explorer Award, which recognizes young scholars who are exceptionally bold and innovative in their approach to scientific inquiry. He will be recognized for this award at University of Zurich in Switzerland. 

The real world 

In the Griffin lab, with real life as his mentor, Griffin is progressing a line 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 that has 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 that’s 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.