The salience of competing nonsocial objects reduces gaze toward social stimuli, but not the eyes, more in typically developing than autistic boys.
Bright toys distract typical preschoolers from faces more than autistic peers, yet autistic boys still look less at eyes no matter the toy.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers showed pictures to preschool boys. Half had autism. Half were typically developing.
Each picture paired a face with a toy. The toy was either bright and moving or dull and still. An eye-tracker recorded where the boys looked.
What they found
When the toy was dull, typical boys looked more at the face than autistic boys.
When the toy was bright and moving, both groups looked less at the face. The drop was bigger for typical boys.
Looking at the eyes was low in autistic boys no matter how exciting the toy was.
How this fits with other research
Harrop et al. (2018) saw the same boy-girl split. Autistic girls looked at faces like typical girls. Autistic boys looked away more.
Rombough et al. (2013) found autistic kids can follow gaze automatically but fail to choose eyes over arrows. The new study adds that toy salience does not explain the eye-avoidance.
Hou et al. (2024) later showed wider age ranges and linked shifty gaze to poor action guessing. Both papers tell us to steady gaze on social cues during teaching.
Why it matters
Take two lessons to the clinic. First, cut visual clutter during social skills drills; typical kids get pulled away faster than autistic kids. Second, do not blame shiny toys for autistic eye-avoidance; train eye contact directly with prompts and reinforcement.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Decreased attention to social information is considered an early emerging symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), although the underlying causes remain controversial. Here we explored the impact of nonsocial object salience on reduced attention to social stimuli in male ASD compared with typically developing (TD) children. Correlations with blood concentrations of neuropeptides linked with social cognition were also investigated. Eye-tracking was performed in 102 preschool-aged boys (50 ASD, 52 TD) using a paradigm with social (faces) versus nonsocial (objects) stimuli presented in pairs in two conditions where nonsocial stimulus salience was varied. Basal oxytocin (OXT) and vasopressin concentrations were measured in blood. Compared with TD boys those with ASD viewed social stimuli less only when they were paired with low-salience nonsocial objects. Additionally, boys with ASD spent less time than TD ones viewing facial features, particularly the eyes. In TD boys, OXT concentrations and cognitive development scores were positively associated with time spent viewing the eye region, whereas for boys with ASD associations with time spent viewing faces were negative. Reduced gaze toward social stimuli in ASD relative to TD individuals may therefore be influenced by how salient the paired nonsocial objects are for the latter. On the other hand, reduced interest in the eyes of faces in boys with ASD is not influenced by how salient competing nonsocial stimuli are. Basal OXT concentrations and cognitive development scores are predictive of time spent viewing social stimuli in TD boys (eyes) and those with ASD (faces) but in the opposite direction. LAY SUMMARY: Children with autism exhibit reduced attention to social paired with nonsocial stimuli compared to typically developing children. Using eye-tracking we show this difference is due to typically developing rather than autistic boys being more influenced by how interesting competing nonsocial objects are. On the other hand, reduced time looking at the eyes in autistic relative to typically developing boys is unaffected by nonsocial object salience. Time spent viewing social stimuli is associated with cognitive development and blood levels of oxytocin.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2022 · doi:10.1002/aur.2714