High autistic trait individuals do not modulate gaze behaviour in response to social presence but look away more when actively engaged in an interaction / Elisabeth A. H. VON DEM HAGEN in Autism Research, 10-2 (February 2017)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism Research > 10-2 (February 2017) . - p.359-368 Titre : High autistic trait individuals do not modulate gaze behaviour in response to social presence but look away more when actively engaged in an interaction Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Elisabeth A. H. VON DEM HAGEN, Auteur ; Naomi BRIGHT, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.359-368 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : autism spectrum  social interaction  eye gaze  faces  theory-of-mind Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Autism is characterised by difficulties in social functioning, notably in interactions with other people. Yet, most studies addressing social difficulties have used static images or, at best, videos of social stimuli, with no scope for real interaction. Here, we study one crucial aspect of social interactions—gaze behaviour—in an interactive setting. First, typical individuals were shown videos of an experimenter and, by means of a deception procedure, were either led to believe that the experimenter was present via a live video-feed or was pre-recorded. Participants' eye movements revealed that when passively viewing an experimenter they believed to be “live,” they looked less at that person than when they believed the experimenter video was pre-recorded. Interestingly, this reduction in viewing behaviour in response to the believed “live” presence of the experimenter was absent in individuals high in autistic traits, suggesting a relative insensitivity to social presence alone. When participants were asked to actively engage in a real-time interaction with the experimenter, however, high autistic trait individuals looked significantly less at the experimenter relative to low autistic trait individuals. The results reinforce findings of atypical gaze behaviour in individuals high in autistic traits, but suggest that active engagement in a social interaction may be important in eliciting reduced looking. We propose that difficulties with the spatio-temporal dynamics associated with real social interactions rather than underlying difficulties processing the social stimulus itself may drive these effects. The results underline the importance of developing ecologically valid methods to investigate social cognition. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.1666 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=303 [article] High autistic trait individuals do not modulate gaze behaviour in response to social presence but look away more when actively engaged in an interaction [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Elisabeth A. H. VON DEM HAGEN, Auteur ; Naomi BRIGHT, Auteur . - p.359-368. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism Research > 10-2 (February 2017) . - p.359-368 Mots-clés : autism spectrum  social interaction  eye gaze  faces  theory-of-mind Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Autism is characterised by difficulties in social functioning, notably in interactions with other people. Yet, most studies addressing social difficulties have used static images or, at best, videos of social stimuli, with no scope for real interaction. Here, we study one crucial aspect of social interactions—gaze behaviour—in an interactive setting. First, typical individuals were shown videos of an experimenter and, by means of a deception procedure, were either led to believe that the experimenter was present via a live video-feed or was pre-recorded. Participants' eye movements revealed that when passively viewing an experimenter they believed to be “live,” they looked less at that person than when they believed the experimenter video was pre-recorded. Interestingly, this reduction in viewing behaviour in response to the believed “live” presence of the experimenter was absent in individuals high in autistic traits, suggesting a relative insensitivity to social presence alone. When participants were asked to actively engage in a real-time interaction with the experimenter, however, high autistic trait individuals looked significantly less at the experimenter relative to low autistic trait individuals. The results reinforce findings of atypical gaze behaviour in individuals high in autistic traits, but suggest that active engagement in a social interaction may be important in eliciting reduced looking. We propose that difficulties with the spatio-temporal dynamics associated with real social interactions rather than underlying difficulties processing the social stimulus itself may drive these effects. The results underline the importance of developing ecologically valid methods to investigate social cognition. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aur.1666 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=303

Intact priors for gaze direction in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum conditions / P. J. PELL in Molecular Autism, 7 (2016)  

Public ISBD [article]  inMolecular Autism > 7 (2016) . - 25p. Titre : Intact priors for gaze direction in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum conditions Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : P. J. PELL, Auteur ; I. MARESCHAL, Auteur ; Andrew J. CALDER, Auteur ; Elisabeth A. H. VON DEM HAGEN, Auteur ; C. W. CLIFFORD, Auteur ; Simon BARON-COHEN, Auteur ; M. P. EWBANK, Auteur Article en page(s) : 25p. Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Adult  Autism Spectrum Disorder/physiopathology  Bayes Theorem  Female  Fixation, Ocular/physiology  Humans  Male  Pattern Recognition, Visual  Photic Stimulation  Visual Perception  Young Adult  Autism  Autistic traits  Bayesian priors  Gaze perception  Uncertainty Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are associated with a range of perceptual atypicalities, including abnormalities in gaze processing. Pellicano and Burr (Trends Cogn Sci 16(10):504-10, 2012) have argued that these atypicalities might be explained within a Bayesian framework, in which perception represents the combination of sensory information with prior knowledge. They propose that the Bayesian priors of individuals with ASC might be attenuated, such that their perception is less reliant on prior knowledge than neurotypical individuals. An important tenet of Bayesian decision theory is that increased uncertainty about incoming sensory information will lead to a greater influence of the prior on perception. Consistent with this, Mareschal et al. (Curr Biol 23(8):717-21, 2013) showed that when noise is added to the eyes of a face (increasing uncertainty about gaze direction), gaze is more likely to be perceived as direct. METHODS: We adopted the same paradigm as Mareschal et al. to determine whether the influence of a prior on gaze perception is reduced in neurotypical participants with high numbers of autistic traits (experiment 1) and in individuals with a clinical diagnosis of ASC (experiment 2). Participants were presented with synthetic faces and asked to make a judgement about the relative gaze directions of the faces. Uncertainty about gaze direction was manipulated by adding noise to the eyes of a face. RESULTS: Consistent with previous work, in both experiment 1 and experiment 2, participants showed a bias towards perceiving gaze as direct under conditions of uncertainty. However, there was no evidence that the magnitude of this bias was reduced either in the ASC group or in neurotypical controls with a high number of autistic traits. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings challenge the attenuated priors theory of perception in ASC (Trends Cogn Sci 16(10):504-10, 2012) and related proposals (Trends Cogn Sci 17(1):1, 2013, Front Hum Neurosci 8:302, 2014), and suggest priors for gaze direction are intact in high-functioning ASC. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-016-0085-9 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=329 [article] Intact priors for gaze direction in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum conditions [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / P. J. PELL, Auteur ; I. MARESCHAL, Auteur ; Andrew J. CALDER, Auteur ; Elisabeth A. H. VON DEM HAGEN, Auteur ; C. W. CLIFFORD, Auteur ; Simon BARON-COHEN, Auteur ; M. P. EWBANK, Auteur . - 25p. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Molecular Autism > 7 (2016) . - 25p. Mots-clés : Adult  Autism Spectrum Disorder/physiopathology  Bayes Theorem  Female  Fixation, Ocular/physiology  Humans  Male  Pattern Recognition, Visual  Photic Stimulation  Visual Perception  Young Adult  Autism  Autistic traits  Bayesian priors  Gaze perception  Uncertainty Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are associated with a range of perceptual atypicalities, including abnormalities in gaze processing. Pellicano and Burr (Trends Cogn Sci 16(10):504-10, 2012) have argued that these atypicalities might be explained within a Bayesian framework, in which perception represents the combination of sensory information with prior knowledge. They propose that the Bayesian priors of individuals with ASC might be attenuated, such that their perception is less reliant on prior knowledge than neurotypical individuals. An important tenet of Bayesian decision theory is that increased uncertainty about incoming sensory information will lead to a greater influence of the prior on perception. Consistent with this, Mareschal et al. (Curr Biol 23(8):717-21, 2013) showed that when noise is added to the eyes of a face (increasing uncertainty about gaze direction), gaze is more likely to be perceived as direct. METHODS: We adopted the same paradigm as Mareschal et al. to determine whether the influence of a prior on gaze perception is reduced in neurotypical participants with high numbers of autistic traits (experiment 1) and in individuals with a clinical diagnosis of ASC (experiment 2). Participants were presented with synthetic faces and asked to make a judgement about the relative gaze directions of the faces. Uncertainty about gaze direction was manipulated by adding noise to the eyes of a face. RESULTS: Consistent with previous work, in both experiment 1 and experiment 2, participants showed a bias towards perceiving gaze as direct under conditions of uncertainty. However, there was no evidence that the magnitude of this bias was reduced either in the ASC group or in neurotypical controls with a high number of autistic traits. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings challenge the attenuated priors theory of perception in ASC (Trends Cogn Sci 16(10):504-10, 2012) and related proposals (Trends Cogn Sci 17(1):1, 2013, Front Hum Neurosci 8:302, 2014), and suggest priors for gaze direction are intact in high-functioning ASC. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-016-0085-9 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=329

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