BACKGROUND Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder defined and diagnosed by core deficits in social communication and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors. Research on face processing suggests deficits in this domain in ASD but includes many mixed findings regarding the nature and extent of these differences. The first eye movement to a face has been shown to be highly informative and sufficient to achieve high performance in face identification in neurotypical adults. The current study focused on this critical moment shown to be essential in the process of face identification. METHODS We applied an established eye-tracking and face identification paradigm to comprehensively characterize the initial eye movement to a face and test its functional consequence on face identification performance in adolescents with and without ASD (n = 21 per group), and in neurotypical adults. Specifically, we presented a series of faces and measured the landing location of the first saccade to each face, while simultaneously measuring their face identification abilities. Then, individuals were guided to look at specific locations on the face, and we measured how face identification performance varied as a function of that location. Adolescent participants also completed a more traditional measure of face identification which allowed us to more fully characterize face identification abilities in ASD. RESULTS Our results indicate that the location of the initial look to faces and face identification performance for briefly presented faces are intact in ASD, ruling out the possibility that deficits in face perception, at least in adolescents with ASD, begin with the initial eye movement to the face. However, individuals with ASD showed impairments on the more traditional measure of face identification. CONCLUSION Together, the observed dissociation between initial, rapid face perception processes, and other measures of face perception offers new insights and hypotheses related to the timing and perceptual complexity of face processing and how these specific aspects of face identification may be disrupted in ASD.

中文翻译：

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自闭症谱系障碍患者最初的眼睛注视面部及其对面部识别能力的功能影响。

背景自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一种神经发育障碍，通过社交沟通的核心缺陷以及受限和重复行为的存在来定义和诊断。对面部处理的研究表明自闭症谱系障碍在这一领域存在缺陷，但包括关于这些差异的性质和程度的许多混合发现。事实证明，对面部的第一次眼球运动可以提供大量信息，足以在神经正常的成年人中实现高性能的面部识别。当前的研究重点关注这一在人脸识别过程中至关重要的关键时刻。方法 我们应用既定的眼动追踪和面部识别范式来全面表征面部的初始眼球运动，并测试其对患有和不患有 ASD 的青少年（每组 n = 21）以及神经正常成年人的面部识别表现的功能影响。具体来说，我们呈现了一系列面孔，并测量了每张面孔的第一次扫视的着陆位置，同时测量了他们的面孔识别能力。然后，引导个体查看面部的特定位置，我们测量面部识别性能如何随该位置变化。青少年参与者还完成了更传统的面部识别测量，这使我们能够更全面地描述自闭症谱系障碍患者的面部识别能力。结果 我们的结果表明，自闭症谱系障碍患者最初看脸的位置和短暂出现的面孔的面部识别表现是完整的，排除了面部感知缺陷（至少在患有自闭症谱系障碍的青少年中）始于最初的眼球运动的可能性。脸。然而，自闭症谱系障碍患者在更传统的面部识别指标上表现出缺陷。结论 总之，观察到的初始快速面部感知过程与其他面部感知测量之间的分离提供了与面部处理的时间和感知复杂性以及面部识别的这些特定方面如何在自闭症谱系障碍中受到干扰相关的新见解和假设。