Effects of observing eye contact on gaze following in high-functioning autism.
Kids with high-functioning autism miss the eye-contact cue that usually pushes people to look where someone else just looked.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Muth et al. (2014) showed the kids with high-functioning autism a short video. In the video, an actor looked into the camera, then turned toward a toy on the left or right.
The kids wore an eye tracker. The team asked: after seeing eye contact, do the kids follow the actor’s gaze to the toy?
What they found
Typical kids looked to the toy faster after the actor made eye contact. The autism group did not speed up at all.
Eye contact gave them zero social cue. Their gaze following stayed flat, even though they could physically move their eyes.
How this fits with other research
Bigham et al. (2013) saw the same blank gaze-following in younger autistic preschoolers, so the problem starts early and lasts.
Clin et al. (2023) flipped the lens: in live chat, neurotypical adults felt stressed when eye contact dropped, while autistic adults stayed calm. Together the studies show a two-way break—autistic people neither send nor receive the usual eye-contact signals.
McCarron et al. (2013) adds a twist: kids with Asperger look at eyes in plain portraits, but stop looking when faces are inside busy social scenes. Real-world social clutter may hide the very cue we want them to notice.
Why it matters
Do not trust that a quick shared glance will steer your client’s attention. Point, tap, or add words. Teach gaze following with explicit trials, not subtle eye cues. When you assess social skills, use dynamic scenes, not static headshots, to see where they truly look.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Observing eye contact between others enhances the tendency to subsequently follow their gaze and has been suggested to function as a social signal that adds meaning to an upcoming action or event. The present study investigated effects of observed eye contact in high-functioning autism (HFA). Two faces on a screen either looked at or away from each other before providing congruent or incongruent gaze cues to one of two target locations. In contrast to control participants, HFA participants did not depict enhanced gaze following after observing eye contact. Individuals with autism, hence, do not seem to process observed mutual gaze as a social signal indicating the relevance of upcoming (gaze) behaviour. This may be based on the reduced tendency of individuals with HFA to engage in social gaze behavior themselves, and might underlie some of the characteristic deficiencies in social communicative behaviour in autism.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2014 · doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2038-5