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Brief Report: Cognitive Control of Social and Nonsocial Visual Attention in Autism

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Abstract

Prosaccade and antisaccade errors in the context of social and nonsocial stimuli were investigated in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 19) a matched control sample (n = 19), and a small sample of youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (n = 9). Groups did not differ in error rates in the prosaccade condition for any stimulus category. In the antisaccade condition, the ASD group demonstrated more errors than the control group for nonsocial stimuli related to circumscribed interests, but not for other nonsocial stimuli or for social stimuli. Additionally, antisaccade error rates were predictive of core ASD symptom severity. Results indicate that the cognitive control of visual attention in ASD is impaired specifically in the context of nonsocial stimuli related to circumscribed interests.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the families who participated in this study. This research was supported by MH081285, MH073402, HD079124, by a UNC Jessie Ball DuPont Dissertation Fellowship to MK and by a UNC Graduate School Summer Research Fellowship to ASD.

Author Contributions

The first author, ASD, worked closely with GD regarding the conception, design, analysis, and interpretation of the data. SJM, EH, and MK made contributed substantially with data acquistion. Authors made significant contributions to drafting or revising the article or contributed to the intellectual content. This study was a portion of the dissertation of ASD under the supervision of GD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Antoinette Sabatino DiCriscio & Gabriel S. Dichter

  2. Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Stephanie J. Miller, Lauren Turner-Brown & Gabriel S. Dichter

  3. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Eleanor K. Hanna

  4. School Psychology Program, School of Education, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Megan Kovac

  5. School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, 75080-3021, USA

    Noah J. Sasson

  6. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, 27710, USA

    Jeffrey Sapyta

  7. Geisinger Health System, Geisinger Autism and Developmental Medicine Institute (ADMI), Lewisburg, PA, 17837, USA

    Antoinette Sabatino DiCriscio & Vanessa Troiani

  8. Department of Psychiatry, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Gabriel S. Dichter

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  1. Antoinette Sabatino DiCriscio
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Correspondence to Antoinette Sabatino DiCriscio.

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DiCriscio, A.S., Miller, S.J., Hanna, E.K. et al. Brief Report: Cognitive Control of Social and Nonsocial Visual Attention in Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 46, 2797–2805 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2804-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2804-7

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