Brief report: broader autism phenotype predicts spontaneous reciprocity of direct gaze.

The team asked 60 college students to sit at a screen. A live video face appeared and sometimes stared straight at the camera.

Students wore an eye tracker. The program counted how often each student returned the direct gaze within one second.

Everyone also filled out the Autism-Spectrum Quotient. No one had a diagnosis; the study looked at subtle traits in typical adults.

People with lower AQ scores met the actor's eyes faster and more often. The link was small but clear.

Social-anxiety scores did not predict gaze returns. Looking at the mouth instead of the eyes also made no difference.

In plain words, fewer autism-like traits meant more spontaneous eye contact.

DiCriscio et al. (2019) saw the same pattern using pupil size instead of gaze. Both papers show eye metrics rise or fall with AQ in typical adults, a tidy conceptual replication.

Finke et al. (2017) extend the idea to real talk. High-AQ adults looked away more when chatting live, matching the lower gaze returns seen here.

Plant et al. (2007) seems to disagree: autistic teens showed almost no non-verbal reciprocity. The gap is explained by group and age. The current study tested typical adults, so some reciprocity stays intact even at high traits.

You now have a quick, cheap phenotype marker: count how fast a client returns your eye contact. The score can flag broader autism traits without a long test. Use it during intake or social-skills baseline. If returns are rare, plan extra gaze targets or video modeling before moving to peer practice.