Previous research links social difficulties to atypical face exploration in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS). Two types of face processing are distinguished: configural (CFP) and featural (FFP). CFP develops later in life and plays an important role in face and emotion recognition abilities. Recent studies reported atypical development of CFP in several neurodevelopmental disorders. Taking previous reports of atypical face exploration one step further, our study aims at characterizing face processing in children and adolescents with 22q11.2DS. First, we sought to identify biases in the first two fixation positions on faces and to detect differences between CFP and FFP in 22q11.2DS using eye-tracking technology. Second, we investigated the developmental trajectories of CFP and FFP using accuracy data from follow-up evaluation. Seventy-five individuals with 22q11.2DS and 84 typically developed (TD) individuals (aged 6–21 years) completed a discrimination task (“Jane task”) inducing CFP and FFP in an eye-tracking setting. Thirty-six individuals with 22q11DS and 30 TD from our sample completed a longitudinal follow-up evaluation. Findings revealed that individuals with 22q11.2DS demonstrate an early bias toward the mouth region during the initial fixations on the faces and reduced flexibility exploration of the faces, with a reduced number of transitions between faces and longer fixations compared to the TD group. Further, scanpaths did not differ between CFP and FFP in the 22q11.2DS group. Longitudinal analysis of accuracy data provided evidence for atypical development of CFP in 22q11.2DS. The current study brings new evidence of altered face exploration in 22q11.2DS and identifies developmental mechanisms that may contribute to difficulties impacting social interactions in the syndrome.

中文翻译：

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22q11.2缺失综合征的面部处理：非典型发育和视觉扫描改变

先前的研究将社会困难与22q11.2缺失综合征（22q11.2DS）的非典型面部探索联系起来。人脸处理分为两种类型：配置（CFP）和自然（FFP）。CFP在生活中发展较晚，并在面部和情绪识别能力中发挥重要作用。最近的研究报道了几种神经发育障碍中CFP的非典型发展。将先前关于非典型面部探究的报告再进一步一步，我们的研究旨在表征22q11.2DS对儿童和青少年的面部处理。首先，我们寻求识别脸部前两个固定位置的偏差，并使用眼动追踪技术检测22q11.2DS中CFP和FFP之间的差异。其次，我们使用来自后续评估的准确性数据调查了CFP和FFP的发展轨迹。75名具有22q11.2DS的个体和84名典型的发育（TD）个体（年龄6-21岁）完成了一项歧视任务（“简任务”），在眼动追踪环境中诱导了CFP和FFP。来自我们样本的36名22q11DS和30 TD的个体完成了纵向随访评估。研究结果表明，与TD组相比，具有22q11.2DS的人表现出在初始固定脸部过程中朝嘴部区域的早期偏向，并减少了对脸部的柔韧性探索，脸部之间的过渡次数减少，并且注视时间更长。此外，在22q11.2DS组中，CFP和FFP之间的扫描路径没有差异。准确性数据的纵向分析为22q11.2DS中CFP的非典型发展提供了证据。当前的研究为11qq的人脸探索带来了新的证据。