Infant neural sensitivity to dynamic eye gaze relates to quality of parent-infant interaction at 7-months in infants at risk for autism.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Elsabbagh M
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4309912 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Autism spectrum disorders (henceforth autism) are diagnosed in around 1% of the population [1]. Familial liability confers risk for a broad spectrum of difficulties including the broader autism phenotype (BAP) [2, 3]. There are currently no reliable predictors of autism in infancy, but characteristic behaviors emerge during the second year, enabling diagnosis after this age [4, 5]. Because indicators of brain functioning may be sensitive predictors, and atypical eye contact is characteristic of the syndrome [6-9] and the BAP [10, 11], we examined whether neural sensitivity to eye gaze during infancy is associated with later autism outcomes [12, 13]. We undertook a prospective longitudinal study of infants with and without familial risk for autism. At 6-10 months, we recorded infants' event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to viewing faces with eye gaze directed toward versus away from the infant [14]. Longitudinal analyses showed that characteristics of ERP components evoked in response to dynamic eye gaze shifts during infancy were associated with autism diagnosed at 36 months. ERP responses to eye gaze may help characterize developmental processes that lead to later emerging autism. Findings also elucidate the mechanisms driving the development of the social brain in infancy.
| S-EPMC3314921 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A fundamental question in functional brain development is how the brain acquires specialised processing optimised for its individual environment. The current study is the first to demonstrate that distinct experience of eye gaze communication, due to the visual impairment of a parent, affects the specificity of brain responses to dynamic gaze shifts in infants. Event-related potentials (ERPs) from 6 to 10 months old sighted infants with blind parents (SIBP group) and control infants with sighted parents (CTRL group) were recorded while they observed a face with gaze shifting Toward or Away from them. Unlike the CTRL group, ERPs of the SIBP group did not differentiate between the two directions of gaze shift. Thus, selective brain responses to perceived gaze shifts in infants may depend on their eye gaze communication experience with the primary caregiver. This finding highlights the critical role of early communicative experience in the emerging functional specialisation of the human brain.
| S-EPMC6252267 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The unique morphology of human eyes enables gaze communication at various ranges of interpersonal distance. Although gaze communication contributes to infants' social development, little is known about how infant-parent distance affects infants' visual experience in daily gaze communication. The present study conducted longitudinal observations of infant-parent face-to-face interactions in the home environment as 5 infants aged from 10 to 15.5 months. Using head-mounted eye trackers worn by parents, we evaluated infants' daily visual experience of 3138 eye contact scenes recorded from the infants' second-person perspective. The results of a hierarchical Bayesian statistical analysis suggest that certain levels of interpersonal distance afforded smooth interaction with eye contact. Eye contacts were not likely to be exchanged when the infant and parent were too close or too far apart. The number of continuing eye contacts showed an inverse U-shaped pattern with interpersonal distance, regardless of whether the eye contact was initiated by the infant or the parent. However, the interpersonal distance was larger when the infant initiated the eye contact than when the parent initiated it, suggesting that interpersonal distance affects the infant's and parent's social look differently. Overall, the present study indicates that interpersonal distance modulates infant-parent gaze communication.
| S-EPMC6637119 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveTo develop new standardized eye tracking based measures and metrics for infants' gaze dynamics in the face-distractor competition paradigm.MethodEye tracking data were collected from two samples of healthy 7-month-old (total n?=?45), as well as one sample of 5-month-old infants (n?=?22) in a paradigm with a picture of a face or a non-face pattern as a central stimulus, and a geometric shape as a lateral stimulus. The data were analyzed by using conventional measures of infants' initial disengagement from the central to the lateral stimulus (i.e., saccadic reaction time and probability) and, additionally, novel measures reflecting infants gaze dynamics after the initial disengagement (i.e., cumulative allocation of attention to the central vs. peripheral stimulus).ResultsThe results showed that the initial saccade away from the centrally presented stimulus is followed by a rapid re-engagement of attention with the central stimulus, leading to cumulative preference for the central stimulus over the lateral stimulus over time. This pattern tended to be stronger for salient facial expressions as compared to non-face patterns, was replicable across two independent samples of 7-month-old infants, and differentiated between 7 and 5 month-old infants.ConclusionThe results suggest that eye tracking based assessments of infants' cumulative preference for faces over time can be readily parameterized and standardized, and may provide valuable techniques for future studies examining normative developmental changes in preference for social signals.SignificanceStandardized measures of early developing face preferences may have potential to become surrogate biomarkers of neurocognitive and social development.
| S-EPMC4028213 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Objectives: The ability to process information about eye gaze and its use for nonverbal communication is foundational to human social interactions. We developed and validated a database of stimuli that are optimized to investigate the perception and referential understanding of shifts in eye gaze.Methods: The 245 Gaze Perception stimuli are digital photographs that test the ability to estimate and interpret eye gaze trajectory. The 82 Gaze Following stimuli are digital videos that measure the ability to follow and interpret eye gaze shifts online. Both stimuli were designed for a 4-alternative forced choice paradigm (4AFC) in which the participant identifies the gazed-at object.Results: Each stimulus was validated by independent raters and only included if the endorsement of the correct item was ?75%. Finally, we provided timestamps for 19 40-second video segments from adolescent-oriented entertainment movies that are matched on several factors. These segments involve social interactions with eye gaze shifts and can be used to measure visual social attention.Conclusions: This database will be an excellent resource for researchers interested in studying the developmental, behavioral, and/or neural mechanisms supporting the perception and interpretation of eye gaze cues.
| S-EPMC7723179 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The ability to discern the target of another person's gaze is critical for social and linguistic development, but functions atypically in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A multi-pronged approach allowed us to deconstruct this complex ability, to uncover the fundamental bases of this impairment. We analyzed performance on a novel gaze perception task with classical psychophysical metrics (precision and accuracy), principal component analysis (in the analysis of spatial biases), and Bayesian computational modeling (in the analysis of individual subjects' use of contextual salience cues). Compared to controls, adults with ASD were less precise and less accurate in their judgments of gaze direction. Further, although nearly all controls exhibited a prototypical pattern of spatial bias in their judgments, this spatial prior was severely disrupted among a large subset of ASD participants. By contrast, Bayesian computational modeling revealed that both groups exploited contextual salience cues in their gaze judgments, and that the average strength of this contextual prior was similar for both groups. This comprehensive study revealed that although most ASD participants performed atypically in at least one aspect of gaze perception, the particular aspects disrupted varied idiosyncratically across individuals. Impairment in gaze perception in ASD likely arises via heterogeneous underlying mechanisms.
| S-EPMC5678184 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundPerceiving and interpreting eye gaze cues is foundational for social cognition and social interactions because it involves the ability to use eye gaze direction to predict the actions and intentions of others. Autism is a disability that impacts social interactions. A diagnostic symptom of autism is difficulty understanding eye gaze cues as social signals. This deficit has long-term consequences for understanding goal-directed behavior, language learning, and social communication. We hypothesize that targeted intervention methods designed to improve sensitivity to eye gaze cues may begin to treat core symptoms of autism and potentially alter multiple aspects of social functioning. Social Games for Autistic Adolescents (SAGA) is a serious computer game intervention designed to improve sensitivity to eye gaze cues. Serious games improve targeted skills with the goal of enhancing real life outcomes. In SAGA, participants progress through a narrative storyline and interact with animated characters. In so doing, they implicitly discover that eye gaze cues are useful for guiding their own goal-directed behavior to solve problems in the game.MethodsWe evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of SAGA in a hybrid phase 1/2, randomized controlled trial. Forty adolescents on the autism spectrum were randomized to either the treatment or standard care control group. Adolescents in the treatment group were asked to play SAGA for 30-minute sessions at home 3 times a week over 10 weeks.ResultsA group × time interaction revealed that the treatment group developed increasing sensitivity to human eye gaze cues, whereas the standard care group did not. Participants who experienced a sufficient dose of gameplay showed larger treatment-related improvements. Critically, increases in sensitivity to human eye gaze cues were associated with improvements in social skills.ConclusionsThis accessible, scalable, and affordable intervention shows promise as an effective tool for improving the ability to interpret and understand eye gaze cues and social skills in adolescents on the autism spectrum.
| S-EPMC9835110 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A key functional effect of intranasal oxytocin with potential therapeutic relevance for autism-spectrum disorder is its reported facilitation of attention towards social stimuli, notably the eye region of faces. In the current randomized placebo-controlled within-subject experiment on 40 healthy males, we investigated the robustness of this facilitation of attention by intranasal oxytocin (24IU) towards social cues. Eye-tracking measures of preference for dynamic and static social vs. non-social stimuli were taken in four different paradigms where autistic individuals tend to exhibit reduced interest in social stimuli. Additionally, we investigated whether oxytocin increases attention towards the eyes relative to other salient face regions in an emotional face paradigm. Results showed that the time spent viewing both dynamic and static social vs. non-social stimuli was negatively associated with trait autism and significantly increased following intranasal oxytocin. For face stimuli, oxytocin primarily increased gaze towards the eyes of fearful expression faces but not for other face emotions. Overall, our findings demonstrate that oxytocin significantly shifts gaze preference towards social vs. non-social stimuli and to the eyes of fearful faces. Importantly, oxytocin appears generally to shift attention more towards salient social stimuli of particular relevance in the context of autism providing further support for its potential therapeutic use in autism-spectrum disorder.
| S-EPMC7217872 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Acquisition of walking changes not only infants' locomotion itself but also infants' exploratory behavior and social interaction, such as gaze communication. To understand the ecological context in which gaze communication occurs and how it changes with walking development from the point of view of the spatial arrangement of infants, parents, and objects, we analyzed longitudinal data of daily eye contact scenes recorded from head-mounted eye trackers worn by parents as infants grew from 10 to 15.5 months, focusing on infant-parent distance and the number of objects between the dyad. A Bayesian state-space model revealed that the interpersonal distance at which infants initiated eye contact with their parents increased with the time ratio of walking to crawling. This result could not be explained by the developmental change in the amount of time that the infants were far from the parents, which is not limited to the gaze communication context. Moreover, the interpersonal distance at which the parents initiated eye contact with the infants did not increase with the time ratio of walking to crawling. The number of objects on the floor between infants and parents at the time of eye contact increased with interpersonal distance. Taken together, these results indicate that the transition from crawling to walking changes the ecological context in which infants initiate gaze communication to a visual environment characterized by a larger interpersonal distance and, therefore, more objects cluttered between the dyad. The present study has wider implications for the developmental change of shared attention in conjunction with walking development.
| S-EPMC7025586 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterised by impairments in social communication. Core symptoms are deficits in social looking behaviours, including limited visual attention to faces and sensitivity to eye gaze cues. We designed an intervention game using serious game mechanics for adolescents with ASD. It is designed to train individuals with ASD to discover that the eyes, and shifts in gaze specifically, provide information about the external world. We predict that the game will increase understanding of gaze cues and attention to faces.Methods and analysisThe Social Games for Adolescents with Autism (SAGA) trial is a preliminary, randomised controlled trial comparing the intervention game with a waitlist control condition. 34 adolescents (10-18 years) with ASD with a Full-Scale IQ between 70 and 130 and a minimum second grade reading level, and their parents, will be randomly assigned (equally to intervention or the control condition) following baseline assessments. Intervention participants will be instructed to play the computer game at home on a computer for ~30?min, three times a week. All families are tested in the lab at baseline and approximately 2 months following randomisation in all measures. Primary outcomes are assessed with eye tracking to measure sensitivity to eye gaze cues and social visual attention to faces; secondary outcomes are assessed with questionnaires to measure social skills and autism-like behaviours. The analyses will focus on evaluating the feasibility, safety and preliminary effectiveness of the intervention.Ethics and disseminationSAGA is approved by the Institutional Review Board at Pennsylvania State University (00005097). Findings will be disseminated via scientific conferences and peer-reviewed journals and to participants via newsletter. The intervention game will be available to families in the control condition after the full data are collected and if analyses indicate that it is effective.Trial registration numberNCT02968225.
| S-EPMC6173230 | biostudies-literature