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Atypical Gaze Cueing Pattern in a Complex Environment in Individuals with ASD

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Abstract

Clinically, social interaction, including gaze-triggered attention, has been reported to be impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but psychological studies have generally shown intact gaze-triggered attention in ASD. These studies typically examined gaze-triggered attention under simple environmental conditions. In real life, however, the environment is complex. Previous studies have shown that an enhanced cueing effect was found when using eye gaze compared with arrow cues in unpredictably complex conditions in typically developing (TD) individuals. However, in the current study, compared with TD individuals, the cueing effect failed to enhance when using eye gaze compared with arrow cues under complex conditions in individuals with ASD. This may reflect the atypical style of gaze-triggered attention when individuals with ASD adapt to environmental complexity.

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Abbreviations

ASD:

Autism spectrum disorder

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

IQ:

Intelligent quotient

RT:

Reaction time

SOA:

Stimulus onset asynchrony

SD:

Standard deviation

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge and thank the participants. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Overseas JSPS Fellows (1515307) and the Organization for Promoting Developmental Disorder Research.

Author contributions

SZ collected and analysed the data and prepared the figures. SZ, SU, SY, YK, and MT designed the experiments and wrote the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Human Health Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, 53 Shogoin Kawahara-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8507, Japan

    Shuo Zhao & Motomi Toichi

  2. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan

    Shuo Zhao

  3. Department of Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry, Habilitation and Rehabilitation, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Shota Uono & Sayaka Yoshimura

  4. Health and Medical Services Center, Shiga University, Shiga, Japan

    Yasutaka Kubota

  5. Organization for Promoting Neurodevelopmental Disorder Research, Kyoto, Japan

    Motomi Toichi

Authors
  1. Shuo Zhao
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  2. Shota Uono
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  3. Sayaka Yoshimura
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  4. Yasutaka Kubota
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  5. Motomi Toichi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shuo Zhao.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

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Zhao, S., Uono, S., Yoshimura, S. et al. Atypical Gaze Cueing Pattern in a Complex Environment in Individuals with ASD. J Autism Dev Disord 47, 1978–1986 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3116-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3116-2

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