Authors: Heather J Nuske Giacomo Vivanti Cheryl Dissanayake
Publish Date: 2015/06/02
Volume: 45, Issue: 11, Pages: 3433-3445
Abstract
The ‘gaze aversion hypothesis’ suggests that people with Autism Spectrum Disorder ASD avoid mutual gaze because they experience it as hyperarousing To test this hypothesis we showed mutual and averted gaze stimuli to 23 mixedability preschoolers with ASD M Mullen DQ = 68 and 21 typicallydeveloping preschoolers aged 2–5 years using eyetracking technology to measure visual attention and emotional arousal ie pupil dilation There were no group differences in attention to the eye region or pupil dilation Both groups dilated their pupils more to mutual compared to averted gaze More internalizing symptoms in the children with ASD related to less emotional arousal to mutual gaze The pattern of results suggests that preschoolers with ASD are not dysregulated in their responses to mutual gazeFirst and foremost the authors would like to thank the families who took part in this study The authors are also extremely grateful to the wonderful staff at the La Trobe University Children’s Centre and Victorian Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centre especially Jenny Reynolds Ed Duncan Jess Feary Kristy Capes Dianna Pell Shannon Upson Sue Schoene Danni Dart and Sanji Ahsan We also acknowledge Russell Beaton for his ingenious work on programming for data reduction and the financial support of the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism Spectrums Disorders Autism CRC established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program
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