Inhibition of return in response to eye gaze and peripheral cues in young people with Asperger's syndrome.

The team asked teens with Asperger's and typical peers to watch a screen. A face popped up and looked left or right, or a bright box flashed on the side.

After each cue the kids pressed a key when a target dot appeared. The task measured inhibition of return — the tiny pause we show when our attention has to swing back to a spot we already checked.

Typical teens slowed down when the target landed where the face had looked — the normal IOR brake. The Asperger group did not slow after eye-gaze cues, only after bright boxes.

In plain words, social eyes failed to tag space as "already checked" for them.

Ahlborn et al. (2008) ran a near-copy study five years earlier and saw a weak but similar trend. McDuffie et al. (2013) sharpened the design and confirmed the social IOR gap is real, not noise.

Muth et al. (2014) seems to disagree: their ASD teens followed gaze cues fine after watching two adults make eye contact. The tasks differ — Anne tested "follow that look," Andrea tested "don’t look back.” Different demands, different answers, no true clash.

Akechi et al. (2014) extends the story. They showed ASD teens do not unconsciously spot direct gaze faster than averted gaze. Together the papers paint one picture: eye direction slips through the cracks of automatic attention in ASD.

When you place a picture card after mutual gaze, don’t expect the learner to reflexively disengage. Build an explicit prompt — "Look here" — and reinforce the shift. Train the missing brake, not just gaze following.