Professor Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon (Northumbria University), Dr Deborah Riby (Durham University), Miss Lisa Whittle (Stirling University)

The study
This study explored various aspects of eye gaze behaviour associated with typical development and with functioning on the autism spectrum throughout this project. Previous research had shown that young people functioning on the autism spectrum were able to change their eye gaze in an appropriate way during a question and answering session – for example, looking away from a questioner more when needing to think. This pattern is also seen in young people without autism and is associated with the need to draw information from memory and switch off from the external environment.

Our findings
Interestingly, our gaze aversion task showed that individuals with autism only showed atypical gaze (in this case reduced eye contact) when they were listening to a question they were being asked. They did not avert eye contact more than is typically observed when thinking or when speaking. We will be exploring the source of this increased gaze aversion that is isolated to listening time in our future research. Importantly, gaze aversion patterns in typical development and in autism may be associated with the type of interaction (e.g. a social encounter versus question and answer session) and also, as we have found in this study, the familiarity of the person we are interacting with.

In a second task we explored the impact on holding face gaze on cognitive performance (the ability to answer maths questions). This was an interesting study where we tried to quantify the impact of looking at faces on our mental abilities. We found that individuals with and without autism were affected by looking at faces when having to think. Individuals with autism were affected no more or less than typically developing individuals. This study could have implications for the way teachers ask questions of pupils in class, forms of social interventions and future ideas about patterns of eye gaze associated with autism. We hope to be able to extend and follow up this work in future endeavours.

Finally, individuals recruited may have helped with our eye gaze and physiological arousal study, exploring the effect of looking at faces on physiological reactivity (e.g. galvanic skin response). Individuals with and without autism increased their physiological arousal when looking at faces in person and on a video screen. Interestingly, individuals functioning on the autism spectrum, but not those without autism, showed a comparable increase in arousal for video-mediated and live faces. Typically developing individuals showed higher physiological reactivity to live than video-mediated faces. As with our other lines of investigation, this study will be taken forward in our future endeavours.

 

If you would like more information on this research please email Deborah.riby@durham.ac.uk and once again we would like to thank all recruits for their support with these studies.

Doherty-Sneddon G, Riby DM, Whittle L. Gaze aversion as a cognitive load management strategy in autism spectrum disorder and Williams syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 2011, 53(4), 420-430.