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The Role of Face Familiarity in Eye Tracking of Faces by Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

It has been shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate normal activation in the fusiform gyrus when viewing familiar, but not unfamiliar faces. The current study utilized eye tracking to investigate patterns of attention underlying familiar versus unfamiliar face processing in ASD. Eye movements of 18 typically developing participants and 17 individuals with ASD were recorded while passively viewing three face categories: unfamiliar non-repeating faces, a repeating highly familiar face, and a repeating previously unfamiliar face. Results suggest that individuals with ASD do not exhibit more normative gaze patterns when viewing familiar faces. A second task assessed facial recognition accuracy and response time for familiar and novel faces. The groups did not differ on accuracy or reaction times.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the individuals and families who participated in this study. We also wish to thank James McPartland, Ph.D., who contributed his time and technical expertise during the initial stages of this project. This research was funded by a center grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (U54MH066399), which is part of the NIMH STAART Centers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Washington Autism Center, University of Washington, Box 357920, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Lindsey Sterling & Geraldine Dawson

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington Autism Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Geraldine Dawson, Sara Webb, Michael Murias & Jeffrey Munson

  3. University of Washington Autism Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Heracles Panagiotides

  4. Department of Radiology, University of Washington Autism Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Elizabeth Aylward

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  1. Lindsey Sterling
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  2. Geraldine Dawson
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Correspondence to Lindsey Sterling.

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Sterling, L., Dawson, G., Webb, S. et al. The Role of Face Familiarity in Eye Tracking of Faces by Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 38, 1666–1675 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-008-0550-1

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