What you see is what you get: contextual modulation of face scanning in typical and atypical development

TY - JOUR

T1 - What you see is what you get

T2 - contextual modulation of face scanning in typical and atypical development

AU - Elsabbagh, Mayada

AU - Bedford, Rachael

AU - Senju, Atsushi

AU - Charman, Tony

AU - Pickles, Andrew

AU - Johnson, Mark H

AU - The BASIS Team

PY - 2014/4

Y1 - 2014/4

N2 - Infants' visual scanning of social scenes is influenced by both exogenously and endogenously driven shifts of attention. We manipulate these factors by contrasting individual infants' distribution of visual attention to the eyes relative to the mouth when viewing complex dynamic scenes with multiple communicative signals (e.g. peek-a-boo), relative to the same infant viewing simpler scenes where only single features move (moving eyes, mouth and hands). We explore the relationship between context-dependent scanning patterns and later social and communication outcomes in two groups of infants, with and without familial risk for autism. Our findings suggest that in complex scenes requiring more endogenous control of attention, increased scanning of the mouth region relative to the eyes at 7 months is associated with superior expressive language (EL) at 36 months. This relationship holds even after controlling for outcome group. In contrast, in simple scenes where only the mouth is moving, those infants, irrespective of their group membership, who direct their attention to the repetitive moving feature, i.e. the mouth, have poorer EL at 36 months. Taken together, our findings suggest that scanning of complex social scenes does not begin as strikingly different in those infants later diagnosed with autism.

AB - Infants' visual scanning of social scenes is influenced by both exogenously and endogenously driven shifts of attention. We manipulate these factors by contrasting individual infants' distribution of visual attention to the eyes relative to the mouth when viewing complex dynamic scenes with multiple communicative signals (e.g. peek-a-boo), relative to the same infant viewing simpler scenes where only single features move (moving eyes, mouth and hands). We explore the relationship between context-dependent scanning patterns and later social and communication outcomes in two groups of infants, with and without familial risk for autism. Our findings suggest that in complex scenes requiring more endogenous control of attention, increased scanning of the mouth region relative to the eyes at 7 months is associated with superior expressive language (EL) at 36 months. This relationship holds even after controlling for outcome group. In contrast, in simple scenes where only the mouth is moving, those infants, irrespective of their group membership, who direct their attention to the repetitive moving feature, i.e. the mouth, have poorer EL at 36 months. Taken together, our findings suggest that scanning of complex social scenes does not begin as strikingly different in those infants later diagnosed with autism.

KW - infant

KW - autism

KW - language development

KW - eye tracking

KW - BROADER AUTISM PHENOTYPE

KW - EYE CONTACT

KW - LANGUAGE-DEVELOPMENT

KW - SOCIAL ATTENTION

KW - JOINT ATTENTION

KW - GAZE-FIXATION

KW - INFANTS

KW - CHILDREN

KW - INDIVIDUALS

KW - ACTIVATION

U2 - 10.1093/scan/nst012

DO - 10.1093/scan/nst012

M3 - Article

C2 - 23386743

VL - 9

SP - 538

EP - 543

JO - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

JF - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

IS - 4

ER -