Skip Navigation



Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access published online on November 3, 2006
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, doi:10.1093/scan/nsl030
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (Rapid PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
1/3/194    most recent
nsl030v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Neumann, D.
Right arrow Articles by Adolphs, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Neumann, D.
Right arrow Articles by Adolphs, R.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author (2006). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received July 29, 2006
Accepted September 16, 2006

Special Issue Paper

Looking you in the mouth: abnormal gaze in autism resulting from impaired top-down modulation of visual attention

Dirk Neumann 1, Michael L. Spezio 2, Joseph Piven 3, and Ralph Adolphs 4 *

1 Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
2 Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
3 Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
4 Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA; Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Ralph Adolphs, E-mail: radolphs{at}hss.caltech.edu


  Abstract

People with autism are impaired in their social behavior, including their eye contact with others, but the processes that underlie this impairment remain elusive. We combined high-resolution eye tracking with computational modeling in a group of 10 high-functioning individuals with autism to address this issue. The group fixated the location of the mouth in facial expressions more than did matched controls, even when the mouth was not shown, even in faces that were inverted and most noticeably at latencies of 200-400 ms. Comparisons with a computational model of visual saliency argue that the abnormal bias for fixating the mouth in autism is not driven by an exaggerated sensitivity to the bottom-up saliency of the features, but rather by an abnormal top-down strategy for allocating visual attention.

Keywords: high-functioning autism; eye movements; saliency; attention.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.