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Aberrant Social Attention and Its Underlying Neural Correlates in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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The Many Faces of Social Attention

Abstract

Preferential attention to social features in the environment emerge early in development. These early preferences are thought to set the stage for the development of complex social skills critical for one’s social competence throughout their lifetime. One group of individuals that exhibit striking abnormalities in social attention is that with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Their abnormalities emerge within the first year of life and persist over the life span. Complementary to the work described in Chap. 7 (Shultz, Jones & Klin, this volume), which explores the early development of social attentional abnormalities in ASD, here we examine how differences in social attention are manifested in older adolescents and adults with ASD. We first review the behavioral literature detailing these differences in social attention, discuss the potential downstream consequences of social attentional disruptions, and examine the neural correlates of atypical social attention. We conclude by discussing possible future directions and outstanding questions in this field.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    While we can dissociate our eye movements from the focus of our attention (von Helmholtz, 1909/1962; Posner et al., 1980), generally our attention corresponds to our overt eye movements.

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    Jennifer C. Bush & Daniel P. Kennedy

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Bush, J., Kennedy, D. (2015). Aberrant Social Attention and Its Underlying Neural Correlates in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In: Puce, A., Bertenthal, B. (eds) The Many Faces of Social Attention. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21368-2_7

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