Dataset Information

Measuring sensitivity to eye gaze cues in naturalistic scenes: Presenting the eye gaze FoCuS database.

ABSTRACT: 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.

SUBMITTER: Bill G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7723179 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Measuring sensitivity to eye gaze cues in naturalistic scenes: Presenting the eye gaze FoCuS database.

Bill Gordon G Whyte Elisabeth E Griffin Jason W JW Scherf K Suzanne KS

International journal of methods in psychiatric research 20200714 4

<h4>Objectives</h4>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.<h4>Methods</h4>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 ...[more]

PMID: 32662167

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Project description:This combined fMRI and MEG study investigated brain activations during listening and attending to natural auditory scenes. We first recorded, using in-ear microphones, vocal non-speech sounds, and environmental sounds that were mixed to construct auditory scenes containing two concurrent sound streams. During the brain measurements, subjects attended to one of the streams while spatial acoustic information of the scene was either preserved (stereophonic sounds) or removed (monophonic sounds). Compared to monophonic sounds, stereophonic sounds evoked larger blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI responses in the bilateral posterior superior temporal areas, independent of which stimulus attribute the subject was attending to. This finding is consistent with the functional role of these regions in the (automatic) processing of auditory spatial cues. Additionally, significant differences in the cortical activation patterns depending on the target of attention were observed. Bilateral planum temporale and inferior frontal gyrus were preferentially activated when attending to stereophonic environmental sounds, whereas when subjects attended to stereophonic voice sounds, the BOLD responses were larger at the bilateral middle superior temporal gyrus and sulcus, previously reported to show voice sensitivity. In contrast, the time-resolved MEG responses were stronger for mono- than stereophonic sounds in the bilateral auditory cortices at ~360 ms after the stimulus onset when attending to the voice excerpts within the combined sounds. The observed effects suggest that during the segregation of auditory objects from the auditory background, spatial sound cues together with other relevant temporal and spectral cues are processed in an attention-dependent manner at the cortical locations generally involved in sound recognition. More synchronous neuronal activation during monophonic than stereophonic sound processing, as well as (local) neuronal inhibitory mechanisms in the auditory cortex, may explain the simultaneous increase of BOLD responses and decrease of MEG responses. These findings highlight the complimentary role of electrophysiological and hemodynamic measures in addressing brain processing of complex stimuli.

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.

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.

Project description:BackgroundShifts in eye gaze communicate social information that allows people to respond to another's behavior, interpret motivations driving behavior, and anticipate subsequent behavior. Understanding the social communicative nature of gaze shifts requires the ability to link eye movements and mental state information about objects in the world. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by atypical sensitivity to eye gaze cues, which impacts social communication and relationships. We evaluated whether reduced visual attention to faces explains this difficulty in ASD.MethodsWe employed eye-tracking technology to measure visual attention to faces and gazed-at objects in a 4-alternative forced choice paradigm in adolescents with ASD and typically developing (TD) adolescents. Participants determined the target object that an actor was looking at in ecologically rich scenes. We controlled for group differences in task engagement and data quality.ResultsIn the Gaze Following task, adolescents with ASD were relatively impaired (Cohen's d = 0.63) in the ability to identify the target object. In contrast to predictions, both groups exhibited comparable fixation durations to faces and target objects. Among both groups, individuals who looked longer at the target objects, but not faces, performed better in the task. Finally, among the ASD group, parent SSIS-Social Skills ratings were positively associated with performance on the Gaze Following task. In the Gaze Perception task, there was a similar pattern of results, which provides internal replication of the findings that visual attention to faces is not related to difficulty interpreting eye gaze cues. Together, these findings indicate that adolescents with ASD are capable of following gaze, but have difficulty linking gaze shifts with mental state information.LimitationsAdditional work is necessary to determine whether these findings generalize to individuals across the full autism spectrum. New paradigms that manipulate component processes of eye gaze processing need to be tested to confirm these interpretations.ConclusionsReduced visual attention to faces does not appear to contribute to atypical processing of eye gaze cues among adolescents with ASD. Instead, the difficulty for individuals with ASD is related to understanding the social communicative aspects of eye gaze information, which may not be extracted from visual cues alone.

Dataset Information

Measuring sensitivity to eye gaze cues in naturalistic scenes: Presenting the eye gaze FoCuS database.

Publications

Measuring sensitivity to eye gaze cues in naturalistic scenes: Presenting the eye gaze FoCuS database.

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