Spontaneous attention to faces in Asperger syndrome using ecologically valid static stimuli.

McCarron et al. (2013) used eye-tracking to watch how people with Asperger syndrome look at faces. They showed two kinds of pictures: single faces on a blank screen and the same faces placed inside real-life group scenes.

The team compared gaze patterns between adults with Asperger syndrome and typical adults. They wanted to know if the setting—plain background versus busy social scene—changed where people looked.

When faces stood alone, both groups looked about the same amount. Once the faces were inside a crowded scene, the Asperger group spent far less time looking at the eyes.

The result was clear: you only see the classic ‘avoid the eyes’ pattern when the face is shown in a realistic social context.

Harrop et al. (2018) extends this idea by showing the eye-gaze gap is even wider in boys; ASD girls keep more typical face looking, so Mary’s finding mainly applies to males.

Spriggs et al. (2015) traces the roots backward: babies later diagnosed with ASD start out looking at eyes but lose this interest after nine months and never bounce back, hinting that Mary’s adult pattern has early developmental origins.

Spanoudis et al. (2011) conceptually replicates the reduced-eye-gaze finding with adults doing an empathy task, proving the effect holds across different kinds of social pictures.

If you test social attention with plain head-shot photos, you can miss the gaze difference. Use busy, natural scenes instead. During social-skills training, place targets near the eyes in realistic pictures or videos and track where the learner actually looks; the data will give you a truer baseline and show whether your intervention is moving the eyes toward the eyes.