Impaired representational gaze following in children with autism spectrum disorder

•Spontaneous gaze following in young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).•Spontaneous gaze following toward hidden objects.•Eye-tracking study with a dynamic and original stimuli.•Children with ASD were less accurate in representational gaze following than controls.•ASD group showed reduced...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Research in developmental disabilities 2016-10, Vol.57, p.11-17
Main Authors: Congiu, Sara, Fadda, Roberta, Doneddu, Giuseppe, Striano, Tricia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Autism spectrum disorder
Autism Spectrum Disorder - physiopathology
Case-Control Studies
Child
Child, Preschool
Cognition
Cues
Eye Movement Measurements
Eye Movements
Eye-tracking
Female
Fixation, Ocular
Gaze-following
Humans
Male
Photic Stimulation
Social Perception
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Summary:•Spontaneous gaze following in young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).•Spontaneous gaze following toward hidden objects.•Eye-tracking study with a dynamic and original stimuli.•Children with ASD were less accurate in representational gaze following than controls.•ASD group showed reduced looking time at the attended representational object. Using eye-tracking methodology, we compared spontaneous gaze following in young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (mean age 5.8 years) to that of typically developing children (mean age 5.7 years). Participants saw videos in which the position of a hidden object was either perceptually visible or was only represented in another person’s mind. The findings indicate that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder were significantly less accurate in gaze following and observed the attended object for less time than typically developing children only in the Representational Condition. These results show that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder are responsive to gaze as a perceptual cue although they ignore its representational meaning.
ISSN:0891-4222
1873-3379
DOI:10.1016/j.ridd.2016.06.008