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The present study aimed to determine whether the impairments in joint attention observed in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in clinical studies were influenced by self-relevant processing. To investigate this possibility, participants were trained to associate two cues (a female face and male face) with distinct words ("self" and "other"). The ASD and typically developing (TD) groups both demonstrated a significant self-relevant effect, responding more quickly to self-pairs than to other pairs. Then, two types of sound (voice and tone) used as targets were manipulated to determine whether the influence of self-relevance on the cueing effect would be similar between individuals with ASD and TD individuals. Individuals with ASD exhibited reduced cueing effect to voice vs. tone targets, whereas TD individuals showed an enhanced cueing effect to voice vs. tone targets when using self-relevant, but not other-relevant, gaze cues. The present results suggest that individuals with ASD exhibit intact self-relevant processing but that the self-relevant processing affects the attentional system of individuals with ASD in a manner different from that of TD individuals and that this difference depends on the self-relevance of the specific target stimuli. Autism Research 2018, 11: 1522-1531. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Observing another person's eye gaze induces attentional shift in the onlooker. Clinical studies have reported that social interaction, including gaze-triggered attention, is impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), while psychological studies have generally reported intact gaze-triggered attention in ASD. This study provided new evidence indicating that gaze-triggered attention is influenced by self-relevant processing in a different manner in ASD individuals than it is in TD individuals. The magnitude of attentional shift triggered by the self-relevant gaze cue was associated with symptom severity in ASD. The functional but atypical self-relevant processing might be able to explain discrepancies in social attention between experimental and real situations., (© 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Clinically, social interaction, including gaze-triggered attention, has been reported to be impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but psychological studies have generally shown intact gaze-triggered attention in ASD. These studies typically examined gaze-triggered attention under simple environmental conditions. In real life, however, the environment is complex. Previous studies have shown that an enhanced cueing effect was found when using eye gaze compared with arrow cues in unpredictably complex conditions in typically developing (TD) individuals. However, in the current study, compared with TD individuals, the cueing effect failed to enhance when using eye gaze compared with arrow cues under complex conditions in individuals with ASD. This may reflect the atypical style of gaze-triggered attention when individuals with ASD adapt to environmental complexity.

Recent studies have attempted to demonstrate the importance of the characteristics of directional cues and observers' traits in attentional orienting. This study investigated how attentional orienting is influenced by target processing. Two experiments showed the critical role played by target processing in attentional orienting that relies on eye-gaze and arrow cues. In Experiment 1, stronger attentional orienting was observed under the object-target condition compared with the scrambled-display condition, irrespective of whether gaze or arrow cues were used. The results indicated that meaningful targets produced stronger attentional orienting than did meaningless targets, regardless of the social characteristics of the target. Experiment 2, which investigated whether attentional orienting was influenced by differences in the meaningfulness of targets regardless of their perceptual features, used participants' own faces and the faces of others as target stimuli; one's own face is typically more meaningful than the face of another. The results showed stronger attentional orienting in response to one's own face than in response to another's face under both gaze and arrow conditions. These findings suggest that the use of task-irrelevant meaningful information as targets may be effective in enhancing attention, regardless of perceptual features.

Behavioral studies have shown that eye gaze triggers attentional shifts both with and without conscious awareness. However, the neural substrates of conscious and unconscious attentional shifts triggered by eye gaze remain unclear. To investigate this issue, we measured brain activity using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants observed averted or straight eye-gaze cues presented supraliminally or subliminally in the central visual field and then localized a subsequent target in the peripheral visual field. Reaction times for localizing the targets were shorter under both supraliminal and subliminal conditions when eye-gaze cues were directionally congruent with the target locations than when they were directionally neutral. Conjunction analyses revealed that a bilateral cortical network, including the middle temporal gyri, inferior parietal lobules, anterior cingulate cortices, and superior and middle frontal gyri, was activated more in response to averted eyes than to straight eyes under both supraliminal and subliminal conditions. Interaction analyses revealed that the right inferior parietal lobule was specifically active when participants viewed averted eyes relative to straight eyes under the supraliminal condition; the bilateral subcortical regions, including the superior colliculus and amygdala, and the middle temporal and inferior frontal gyri in the right hemisphere were activated in response to averted versus straight eyes under the subliminal condition. These results suggest commonalities and differences in the neural mechanisms underlying conscious and unconscious attentional shifts triggered by eye gaze., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This study investigated whether eye contact perception differs in people with different cultural backgrounds. Finnish (European) and Japanese (East Asian) participants were asked to determine whether Finnish and Japanese neutral faces with various gaze directions were looking at them. Further, participants rated the face stimuli for emotion and other affect-related dimensions. The results indicated that Finnish viewers had a smaller bias toward judging slightly averted gazes as directed at them when judging Finnish rather than Japanese faces, while the bias of Japanese viewers did not differ between faces from their own and other cultural backgrounds. This may be explained by Westerners experiencing more eye contact in their daily life leading to larger visual experience of gaze perception generally, and to more accurate perception of eye contact with people from their own cultural background particularly. The results also revealed cultural differences in the perception of emotion from neutral faces that could also contribute to the bias in eye contact perception.

Gaze and arrows automatically trigger attentional shifts. Neuroimaging studies have identified a commonality in the spatial distribution of the neural activation involved in such attentional shifts. However, it remains unknown whether these activations occur with common temporal profiles. To investigate this issue, magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to evaluate neural activation involved in attentional shifts induced by gaze and arrows. MEG source reconstruction analyses revealed that the superior temporal sulcus and the inferior frontal gyrus were commonly activated after 200ms, in response to directional versus non-directional cues. Regression analyses further revealed that the magnitude of brain activity in these areas and in the bilateral occipital cortex was positively related to the effect of attentional shift on reaction times under both the gaze and the arrow conditions. The results also revealed that some brain regions were activated specifically in response to directional versus non-directional gaze or arrow cues at the 350-400ms time window. These results suggest that the neural mechanisms underlying attentional shifts induced by gaze and arrows share commonalities in their spatial distributions and temporal profiles, with some spatial differences at later time stages., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and the Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.)

This study aimed to evaluate the difference in non-predictive cues between gaze and arrows in attention orienting. Attention orienting was investigated with gaze or arrows as separate cues in a simple condition (i.e., block design) in Experiment 1 and in an unpredictable condition (i.e., randomized design) in Experiment 2. Two kinds of sound (voice and tone) stimuli were used as targets. Results showed that gaze and arrow cues induced enhanced attention orienting to a voice versus tone target in the block condition. However, in the randomized condition, enhanced attention orienting to a voice versus tone target was found in gaze but not arrow cues. The congruency of the meaning between a social cue (i.e., gaze) and a social target (i.e., voice) was clear in the randomized but not blocked design, because social gaze and non-social arrow cues were implemented in the same block. Thus, attention orienting might be mediated by the associated relationship of cue-target in a randomized condition, as an enhanced orienting effect was found when the associated relationship of cue-target was strong (i.e., social cue and target). The present study suggests that the difference in attention orienting between gaze and arrows is apparent in a randomized design (the unpredictable condition), and people employ a flexibly strategy of orienting to better respond to environmental changes., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: The eye gaze of other individuals conveys important social information and can trigger multiple psychological activities; some of which, such as emotional reactions and attention orienting, occur very rapidly. Although some neuroscientific evidence has suggested that the amygdala may be involved in such rapid gaze processing, no evidence has been reported concerning the speed at which the amygdala responds to eye gaze., Methodology/principal Findings: To investigate this issue, we recorded electrical activity within the amygdala of six subjects using intracranial electrodes. Subjects observed images of eyes and mosaics pointing in averted and straight directions. The amygdala showed higher gamma-band oscillations for eye gaze than for mosaics, which peaked at 200 ms regardless of the direction of the gaze., Conclusion: These results indicate that the human amygdala rapidly processes eye gaze.

The human superior temporal sulcus (STS) has been suggested to be involved in gaze processing, but temporal data regarding this issue are lacking. We investigated this topic by combining fMRI and MEG in four normal subjects. Photographs of faces with either averted or straight eye gazes were presented and subjects passively viewed the stimuli. First, we analyzed the brain areas involved using fMRI. A group analysis revealed activation of the STS for averted compared to straight gazes, which was confirmed in all subjects. We then measured brain activity using MEG, and conducted a 3D spatial filter analysis. The STS showed higher activity in response to averted versus straight gazes during the 150-200 ms period, peaking at around 170 ms, after stimulus onset. In contrast, the fusiform gyrus, which was detected by the main effect of stimulus presentations in fMRI analysis, exhibited comparable activity across straight and averted gazes at about 170 ms. These results indicate involvement of the human STS in rapid processing of the eye gaze of another individual.