Autism is characterized by differences in social interaction and communication. One key aspect of these differences is social attention, which refers to the way individuals allocate their attention to socially relevant stimuli, such as faces and eyes.
Autistic individuals often exhibit reduced social attention compared to neurotypical peers. This difference in social attention is thought to contribute to challenges in social communication and interaction.
Clin, E., Miller, E., & Kissine, M. (2024). Similar social attention, physiological arousal, and familiarity effect in autistic and neurotypical children: A real-life recreational eye-tracking paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(4), 1112–1130. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001553
Key Points
- Autistic and neurotypical children exhibited comparable attention to their partners’ eyes and physiological arousal during naturalistic interactions in a recreational setting.
- Familiarity with the interactional partner led to heightened visual attention in both autistic and neurotypical children.
- Conversational topics influenced social attention and physiological arousal, with more engaging topics eliciting increased eye gaze and skin conductance responses.
- The study challenges the universality of the social cognitive developmental theory and questions the applicability of the social motivation theory to autism.
Rationale
Social attention is considered crucial for developing social skills and is thought to be fostered by social interactions (Vygotsky, 1978).
Autism is characterized by signs such as differences in social interactions and reduced social attention, which is often attributed to diminished social interest (Chevallier et al., 2012).
However, most evidence for low social interest in autism comes from eye-tracking studies that lack ecological validity (Freeth & Morgan, 2023; Grossman et al., 2019).
This study aims to document social attention and physiological arousal in autistic and neurotypical children within naturalistic settings, exploring the influence of partner familiarity and conversational topics.
Method
The study employed a real-life recreational eye-tracking paradigm, where autistic and neurotypical children engaged in watercolor activities with familiar and unfamiliar adult experimenters.
The experimenters introduced various conversational topics, and children’s gaze behaviors and electrodermal activity were recorded.
Procedure
Children participated in two recreational sessions, one with a familiar experimenter and another with an unfamiliar experimenter.
During each session, the child and experimenter engaged in watercolor activities while discussing three general topics and one topic specific to the child’s interests.
Sample
The study included 18 autistic children (15 boys, 3 girls) aged 6-9 years and 36 neurotypical children (30 boys, 6 girls) aged 6-9 years.
The neurotypical group was divided into two subgroups: one matched on chronological age and the other on mental age to the autistic group.
Measures
- Eye-tracking data: Recorded using wearable head-mounted eye-trackers at a 100-Hz rate.
- Interactional data: Participants’ behaviors were recorded with a camera and segmented into topics.
- Electrodermal data: Participants’ skin conductance was recorded at a 15-Hz rate using sensors attached to their non-dominant hand.
Statistical measures
The data were analyzed using forward stepwise multilevel linear regressions, with by-participant intercepts and partner-by-participant slopes in the random structure.
Bayesian modeling was also conducted to support the null hypothesis.
Results
The study found no significant group differences in the proportion of fixations on the experimenter’s eyes.
Both autistic and neurotypical children looked more at the familiar partner’s eyes than the unfamiliar partner’s eyes.
Fixations on the partner’s eyes were less frequent during technical topics compared to common, specific, and personal topics.
Skin conductance responses increased along with fixations on the experimenter’s eyes, and this effect was more pronounced in the chronological age group compared to the mental age group.
Insight
The findings suggest that social attention in autistic and neurotypical children is task- and context-dependent.
The absence of group differences in social attention challenges the characterization of autism as insensitive to social interactions and partners.
The results also highlight the importance of familiarity in shaping social attention in both autistic and neurotypical children.
The study underscores the need for more naturalistic research to better understand the complexities of social functioning in typical and atypical development.
Strengths
This study had several methodological strengths, including:
- Naturalistic, ecologically valid paradigm
- Control for familiarity with the interactional partner
- Inclusion of both eye-tracking and physiological measures
- Matching of neurotypical groups based on chronological and mental age
Limitations
This study also had some methodological limitations, including:
- Small sample size, particularly for the autistic group
- Limited generalizability due to the inclusion of only autistic children with linguistic and intellectual profiles within the typical range
- Order of familiar and unfamiliar sessions was not counterbalanced
- Experimenters were not blind to participants’ diagnostic status
Implications
The results challenge the universality of the social cognitive developmental theory and question the applicability of the social motivation theory to autism.
The findings suggest that factors other than atypical social interactions may contribute to the social behaviors observed in autistic children.
The study highlights the importance of conducting research in naturalistic settings to better understand social functioning in both neurotypical and neurodiverse development.
The findings have implications for designing interventions and support strategies for autistic individuals, emphasizing the role of familiarity and context in shaping social attention and engagement.
References
Primary reference
Clin, E., Miller, E., & Kissine, M. (2024). Similar social attention, physiological arousal, and familiarity effect in autistic and neurotypical children: A real-life recreational eye-tracking paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(4), 1112–1130. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001553
Other references
Chevallier, C., Kohls, G., Troiani, V., Brodkin, E. S., & Schultz, R. T. (2012). The social motivation theory of autism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(4), 231-239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.02.007
Freeth, M., & Morgan, E. J. (2023). I see you, you see me: The impact of social presence on social interaction processes in autistic and non-autistic people. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 378(1875), Article 20210479. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0479
Grossman, R. B., Zane, E., Mertens, J., & Mitchell, T. (2019). Facetime vs. screentime: Gaze patterns to live and video social stimuli in adolescents with ASD. Scientific Reports, 9(1), Article 12643. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49039-7
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjf9vz4
Keep Learning
Here are some potential discussion questions for a college class on this paper:
- How might the findings of this study inform the design of interventions and support strategies for autistic individuals in social settings?
- What are the potential implications of the absence of group differences in social attention for our understanding of the social motivation theory of autism?
- How can researchers balance the need for ecological validity with the challenges of conducting well-controlled studies in naturalistic settings?
- What other factors, besides familiarity and conversational topics, might influence social attention and engagement in autistic and neurotypical children?
- How can the insights gained from this study be applied to promote inclusive practices and foster positive social experiences for autistic individuals in educational and community settings?
