Atypical visual orienting to gaze- and arrow-cues in adults with high functioning autism.
High-functioning adults with autism treat eye-gaze direction like any other symbolic arrow cue—no special social orienting advantage.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Walley et al. (2005) watched how adults with high-functioning autism moved their eyes. They used two kinds of cues: a face looking left or right, and an arrow pointing left or right.
The team wanted to know if the adults would follow the gaze of the face faster than the arrow. Typical adults usually shift attention faster to a looked-at spot than to an arrow.
What they found
The adults with autism did not treat the gaze cue as special. Their eyes moved just as fast (or slow) to the arrow as to the face.
There was no left-right difference either. In short, eye direction worked like any other neutral symbol for this group.
How this fits with other research
Sisson et al. (1993) saw the same slow orienting in high-functioning adults years earlier. Walley et al. (2005) narrowed the cause: the delay is not just general, it wipes out the usual social speed boost.
Flanagan et al. (2015) seems to disagree. They found that children with autism did show normal social orienting. The gap is likely age, not error. Kids may still learn the social cue rule; adults in the 2005 study already stopped.
Zhao et al. (2018) added a twist. When the gaze cue was linked to the viewer’s own name, adults with autism did speed up. This shows the mechanism is not broken; it just needs the right social hook.
Why it matters
If you run discrimination or social-skills programs, do not assume eye gaze will grab attention for free. Pair gaze with clear rewards or self-relevant cues. Teach clients to check eye direction on purpose, then reinforce the shift. For older learners, treat gaze like any other instruction cue and prompt as needed.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study investigates visual orienting to directional cues (arrow or eyes) in adults with high functioning autism (n = 19) and age matched controls (n = 19). A choice reaction time paradigm is used in which eye- or arrow direction correctly (congruent) or incorrectly (incongruent) cues target location. In typically developing participants, the visual orienting reflex is longer for eyes than for arrows. Right side cueing, but not left side cueing, induced a congruence effect for eyes, while this effect was evident for right as well as for left side arrow cues. In participants with autism the overall visual orienting reflex was not different between arrows and eyes and no laterality effect was found for eyes cueing. These findings suggest that, instead of a specific Eye Direction Detector persons with autism might have a general 'Symbol Direction Detector'.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2005 · doi:10.1007/s10803-005-3289-y