Visual Scanning of Faces in Autism

Pelphrey, K.A., Sasson, N.J., Reznick, J.S., Paul, G., Goldman, B.D., and Piven, J. (2002), Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol 32, Pages 249-261.

The visual scanpaths of five high-functioning adult autistic males and five adult male controls were recorded using an infrared corneal reflection technique as they viewed photographs of human faces. Analyses of the scanpath data revealed marked differences in the scanpaths of the two groups. The autistic participants viewed nonfeature areas of the faces significantly more often and core feature areas of the faces (i.e., eyes, nose and mouth) significantly less often than did control participants. Across both groups of participants, scanpaths generally did not differ as a function of the instructions given to the participants. Autistic participants showed a deficit in emotion recognition, but this effect was driven primarily by deficits in the recognition of fear. Collectively, these results indicate disorganized processing of face stimuli in autistic individuals and suggest a mechanism that may subserve the social information processing deficits that characterise autism spectrum disorders.

Discussion
In general, the scanpaths of the participants with autism seemed erratic, undirected, and disorganised, often reflecting the processing of only one or two relatively unimportant features of the face (e.g., an ear, the chin, or region of the hair line).