Gaze aversion during social style interactions in autism spectrum disorder and Williams syndrome.

During face-to-face interactions typically developing individuals use gaze aversion (GA), away from their questioner, when thinking. GA is also used when individuals with autism (ASD) and Williams syndrome (WS) are thinking during question-answer interactions. We investigated GA strategies during face-to-face social style interactions with familiar and unfamiliar interlocutors. Participants with WS and ASD used overall typical amounts/patterns of GA with all participants looking away most while thinking and remembering (in contrast to listening and speaking). However there were a couple of specific disorder related differences: participants with WS looked away less when thinking and interacting with unfamiliar interlocutors; in typical development and WS familiarity was associated with reduced gaze aversion, however no such difference was evident in ASD. Results inform typical/atypical social and cognitive phenotypes. We conclude that gaze aversion serves some common functions in typical and atypical development in terms of managing the cognitive and social load of interactions. There are some specific idiosyncracies associated with managing familiarity in ASD and WS with elevated sociability with unfamiliar others in WS and a lack of differentiation to interlocutor familiarity in ASD. Regardless of the familiarity of the interlocutor, GA is associated with thinking for typically developing as well as atypically developing groups. Social skills training must take this into account.

[1]  Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon,et al.  Helping children think: Gaze aversion and teaching , 2006 .

[2]  G. Doherty-Sneddon,et al.  Gaze aversion as a cognitive load management strategy in autism spectrum disorder and Williams syndrome , 2011, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[3]  S. Itakura,et al.  Social Phenotypes of Autism Spectrum Disorders and Williams Syndrome: Similarities and Differences , 2012, Front. Psychology.

[4]  Brian W. Haas,et al.  Genetic Influences on Sociability: Heightened Amygdala Reactivity and Event-Related Responses to Positive Social Stimuli in Williams Syndrome , 2009, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[5]  Ursula Bellugi,et al.  “Everybody in the world is my friend” hypersociability in young children with Williams syndrome , 2004, American journal of medical genetics. Part A.

[6]  D. Riby,et al.  Executive neuropsychological functioning in individuals with Williams syndrome , 2010, Neuropsychologia.

[7]  Daniel Ansari,et al.  Atypical development of language and social communication in toddlers with Williams syndrome , 2002 .

[8]  Attentional Characteristics of Infants and Toddlers With Williams Syndrome During Triadic Interactions , 2003, Developmental neuropsychology.

[9]  H. Ehrlichman,et al.  Looking for answers: Eye movements in non-visual cognitive tasks , 2007, Brain and Cognition.

[10]  D. Perrett,et al.  Is everybody always my friend? Perception of approachability in Williams syndrome , 2006, Neuropsychologia.

[11]  E. Courchesne,et al.  The brain response to personally familiar faces in autism: findings of fusiform activity and beyond. , 2004, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[12]  A. Young,et al.  Matching Familiar and Unfamiliar Faces on Internal and External Features , 1985, Perception.

[13]  Ana B. Chica,et al.  Attentional Routes to Conscious Perception , 2012, Front. Psychology.

[14]  Chris Moore,et al.  Infant gaze following based on eye direction , 1998 .

[15]  Michael Murias,et al.  The Role of Face Familiarity in Eye Tracking of Faces by Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders , 2008, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[16]  A. Karmiloff-Smith,et al.  Tracing Syndrome-Specific Trajectories of Attention Across the Lifespan , 2007, Cortex.

[17]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology , 1980 .

[18]  Susan L. Weiner,et al.  Effects of verbal and spatial questions on initial gaze shifts. , 1973, Neuropsychologia.

[19]  Z. Rubin.  Measurement of romantic love. , 1970, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  J. Piven,et al.  Visual Scanning of Faces in Autism , 2002, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[21]  Eynat Gal,et al.  A Meta-Analysis of Sensory Modulation Symptoms in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders , 2009, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[22]  G. Doherty-Sneddon,et al.  Influence of video-mediation on adult-child interviews: implications for the use of the live link with child witnesses , 2000 .

[23]  Mark H. Johnson,et al.  Atypical eye contact in autism: Models, mechanisms and development , 2009, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[24]  P. Strømme,et al.  Prevalence Estimation of Williams Syndrome , 2002, Journal of child neurology.

[25]  M. Coltheart,et al.  The neuropsychological basis of hypersociability in Williams and Down syndrome , 2007, Neuropsychologia.

[26]  内山登紀夫,et al.  発達障害者に対する長期的な追跡調査を踏まえ,幼児期から成人期に至る診断等の指針を開発する研究 自閉症スペクトラムの診断・評価のための検査Social Communication Questionnaire(SCQ)及びThe Childhood Autism Rating Scale‐Second Edition,High Functioning Version(CARS2‐HF)の日本語版の開発に関する研究 , 2011 .

[27]  M. Doherty,et al.  The rapid development of explicit gaze judgment ability at 3 years. , 2009, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[28]  Atypical verbal communication pattern according to others' attention in children with Williams syndrome. , 2010, Research in developmental disabilities.

[29]  J. Russell.  Autism as an executive disorder , 1997 .

[30]  J. Buitelaar,et al.  Timing of Social Gaze Behavior in Children with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder , 1998, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[31]  J. Korenberg,et al.  The relationship between age and IQ in adults with Williams syndrome. , 2004, American journal of mental retardation : AJMR.

[32]  Kim M. Dalton,et al.  Gaze fixation and the neural circuitry of face processing in autism , 2005, Nature Neuroscience.

[33]  P. Hancock,et al.  Do Faces Capture the Attention of Individuals with Williams Syndrome or Autism? Evidence from Tracking Eye Movements , 2009, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[34]  M. Argyle,et al.  EYE-CONTACT, DISTANCE AND AFFILIATION. , 1965, Sociometry.

[35]  H. Critchley,et al.  The functional neuroanatomy of social behaviour: changes in cerebral blood flow when people with autistic disorder process facial expressions. , 2000, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[36]  V Bruce,et al.  Development of gaze aversion as disengagement from visual information. , 2002, Developmental psychology.

[37]  H. McGurk,et al.  Hearing lips and seeing voices , 1976, Nature.

[38]  C. Pierrot-Deseilligny,et al.  Decisional role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in ocular motor behaviour. , 2003, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[39]  A. Glenberg,et al.  Averting the gaze disengages the environment and facilitates remembering , 1998, Memory & cognition.

[40]  Vicki Bruce,et al.  The eyes or the mouth? Feature salience and unfamiliar face processing in Williams syndrome and autism , 2009, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[41]  Mark H. Johnson,et al.  The eye contact effect: mechanisms and development , 2009, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[42]  Hilla Peretz,et al.  Ju n 20 03 Schrödinger ’ s Cat : The rules of engagement , 2003 .

[43]  Effects of verbal and spatial questions on initial gaze shifts. , 1973, Neuropsychologia.

[44]  A. Karmiloff-Smith,et al.  Williams syndrome: from genotype through to the cognitive phenotype. , 2000, American journal of medical genetics.

[45]  Geraldine Dawson,et al.  Neural correlates of face and object recognition in young children with autism spectrum disorder, developmental delay, and typical development. , 2002, Child development.

[46]  G. Doherty-Sneddon,et al.  Stuck on you: Face-to-face arousal and gaze aversion in Williams syndrome , 2009, Cognitive neuropsychiatry.

[47]  U. Frith.  Autism: Explaining the Enigma , 2005 .

[48]  Fiona G. Phelps,et al.  Gaze aversion: A response to cognitive or social difficulty? , 2005, Memory & cognition.

[49]  F. Volkmar,et al.  Defining and quantifying the social phenotype in autism. , 2002, The American journal of psychiatry.

[50]  C A Morris,et al.  Williams syndrome and related disorders. , 2000, Annual review of genomics and human genetics.

[51]  G. Baird,et al.  Validation of the social communication questionnaire in a population cohort of children with autism spectrum disorders. , 2007, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[52]  R. Adolphs,et al.  II. Hypersociability in Williams Syndrome , 2000, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[53]  B. Leventhal,et al.  The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule—Generic: A Standard Measure of Social and Communication Deficits Associated with the Spectrum of Autism , 2000, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[54]  Peter J. B. Hancock,et al.  Viewing it differently: Social scene perception in Williams syndrome and Autism , 2008, Neuropsychologia.

[55]  L. Mottron.  Matching Strategies in Cognitive Research with Individuals with High-Functioning Autism: Current Practices, Instrument Biases, and Recommendations , 2004, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[56]  Vicki Bruce,et al.  Attention to Faces in Williams Syndrome , 2011, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[57]  Jon Brock,et al.  The other end of the spectrum? Social cognition in Williams syndrome. , 2009 .

[58]  A. Karmiloff-Smith,et al.  Is There a Social Module? Language, Face Processing, and Theory of Mind in Individuals with Williams Syndrome , 1995, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.