45 results on '"Gaze processing"'
Search Results
2. A novel eye‐tracking paradigm for indexing social avoidance‐related behavior in fragile X syndrome
- Author
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Klusek, Jessica, Moser, Carly, Schmidt, Joseph, Abbeduto, Leonard, and Roberts, Jane E
- Subjects
Brain Disorders ,Fragile X Syndrome ,Behavioral and Social Science ,Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) ,Mental Health ,Pediatric ,Rare Diseases ,Adolescent ,Adult ,Avoidance Learning ,Eye Movement Measurements ,Eye Movements ,Eye-Tracking Technology ,Facial Expression ,Humans ,Male ,Social Behavior ,Young Adult ,drug trials ,eye contact ,gaze avoidance ,gaze processing ,social anxiety ,Genetics ,Clinical Sciences ,Neurosciences - Abstract
Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is characterized by hallmark features of gaze avoidance, reduced social approach, and social anxiety. The development of therapeutics to manage these symptoms has been hindered, in part, by the lack of sensitive outcome measures. This study investigated the utility of a novel eye-tracking paradigm for indexing social avoidance-related phenotypes. Adolescent/young adult-aged males with FXS (n = 24) and typical development (n = 23) participated in the study. Participants viewed faces displaying direct or averted gaze and the first fixation duration on the eyes was recorded as an index of initial stimulus registration. Fixation durations did not differ across the direction of gaze conditions in either group, although the control group showed longer initial fixations on the eyes relative to the FXS group. Shorter initial fixation on averted gaze in males with FXS was a robust predictor of the severity of their social avoidance behavior exhibited during a social greeting context, whereas parent-reported social avoidance symptoms were not related to performance in the semi-naturalistic context. This eye-tracking paradigm may represent a promising outcome measure for FXS clinical trials because it provides a quantitative index that closely maps onto core social avoidance phenotypes of FXS, can be completed in less than 20 min, and is suitable for use with individuals with low IQ.
- Published
- 2020
3. How ubiquitous is the direct-gaze advantage? Evidence for an averted-gaze advantage in a gaze-discrimination task.
- Author
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Riechelmann, Eva, Gamer, Matthias, Böckler, Anne, and Huestegge, Lynn
- Subjects
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SOCIAL perception , *GAZE - Abstract
Human eye gaze conveys an enormous amount of socially relevant information, and the rapid assessment of gaze direction is of particular relevance in order to adapt behavior accordingly. Specifically, previous research demonstrated evidence for an advantage of processing direct (vs. averted) gaze. The present study examined discrimination performance for gaze direction (direct vs. averted) under controlled presentation conditions: Using a backward-masking gaze-discrimination task, photographs of faces with direct and averted gaze were briefly presented, followed by a mask stimulus. Additionally, effects of facial context on gaze discrimination were assessed by either presenting gaze direction in isolation (i.e., by only showing the eye region) or in the context of an upright or inverted face. Across three experiments, we consistently observed a facial context effect with highest discrimination performance for faces presented in upright position, lower performance for inverted faces, and lowest performance for eyes presented in isolation. Additionally, averted gaze was generally responded to faster and with higher accuracy than direct gaze, indicating an averted-gaze advantage. Overall, the results suggest that direct gaze is not generally associated with processing advantages, thereby highlighting the important role of presentation conditions and task demands in gaze perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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4. Editorial: Typical and Atypical Processing of Gaze
- Author
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Chris Ashwin and Paola Ricciardelli
- Subjects
eyes ,gaze processing ,gaze direction ,mental states ,attention ,autism spectrum disorder ,Psychology ,BF1-990 - Published
- 2019
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5. The Time Course of Information Processing During Eye Direction Perception.
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Babinet MN, Demily C, Gobin E, Laurent C, Maillet T, and Michael GA
- Subjects
- Humans, Cognition, Attention, Perception, Fixation, Ocular, Face
- Abstract
Gaze directed at the observer (direct gaze) is a highly salient social signal. Despite the existence of a preferential orientation toward direct gaze, none of the studies carried out so far seem to have explicitly studied the time course of information processing during gaze direction judgment. In an eye direction judgment task, participants were presented with a sketch of a face. A temporal asynchrony was introduced between the presentation of the eyes and that of the rest of the face. Indeed, the face could be presented before the eyes, the eyes could be presented before the face, or the face and the eyes could be presented simultaneously. In a second time, the face direction was also manipulated. The results suggest that the time course of information processing during eye direction judgment follows a continuum that makes it possible to perceive the eyes first and then to use the facial context to judge the direction of gaze. Furthermore, the congruency between the direction of gaze and that of the face confirms this observation. Although these results are discussed in the light of existing theories about the mechanisms underlying gaze processing, our data provide new information suggesting that, despite their power to capture attention, the eyes probably have to stand out from a more general spatial configuration (i.e., the face) in order for their direction to be adequately processed.
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- 2023
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6. Eye-gaze processing in the broader bipolar phenotype revealed by electrical neuroimaging.
- Author
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Berchio, Cristina, Küng, Anne-Lise, Kumar, Samika, Cordera, Paolo, Dayer, Alexandre G., Aubry, Jean-Michel, Michel, Christoph M., and Piguet, Camille
- Subjects
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PREMOTOR cortex , *BIPOLAR disorder , *PARIETAL lobe , *MOTOR cortex , *SOCIAL networks , *BRAIN imaging - Abstract
• The P200 differentiated BD patients and offspring from controls. • Source imaging provided insight into potentially dysfunctional P200 networks. • Deviant eye-gaze processing is associated to risk for BD. Previous studies have documented atypical brain responses to faces in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) and in their relatives. In view of previous findings of atypical face processing in youths at risk for BD, the aim of this study was to examine whether BD patients and offspring would show differential activation in networks of the social brain when processing eye-gaze. Data from 18 euthymic BD patients and 18 offspring, as well as 36 age-matched healthy controls, were collected using a delayed face-matching paradigm, event related potentials and electrical neuroimaging methods. The P200 component, which is implicated in facial cues decoding, differentiated the BD groups from their age-matched controls. P200 source reconstruction indicates impairments conveyed by eye-contact in a network involved in experiencing others' social intentions in BD patients (supplementary motor cortex, precentral gyrus, inferior parietal lobe), and the engagement of compensatory prefrontal mechanisms for modulating these functions in BD offspring. When viewing faces that had an averted gaze, BD patients and offspring showed a hypo-activation, compared to controls, particularly in regions involved in experiencing others' feelings (post-central gyrus in BD patients / ventral premotor cortex in offspring). Therefore, the neural mechanism for decoding shifts in eye-gaze may be a familial characteristic of BD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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- 2019
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7. The Effect of Eye Contact Is Contingent on Visual Awareness
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Shan Xu, Shen Zhang, and Haiyan Geng
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eye contact ,joint attention ,gaze processing ,implicit social cognition ,visual awareness ,Psychology ,BF1-990 - Abstract
The present study explored how eye contact at different levels of visual awareness influences gaze-induced joint attention. We adopted a spatial-cueing paradigm, in which an averted gaze was used as an uninformative central cue for a joint-attention task. Prior to the onset of the averted-gaze cue, either supraliminal (Experiment 1) or subliminal (Experiment 2) eye contact was presented. The results revealed a larger subsequent gaze-cueing effect following supraliminal eye contact compared to a no-contact condition. In contrast, the gaze-cueing effect was smaller in the subliminal eye-contact condition than in the no-contact condition. These findings suggest that the facilitation effect of eye contact on coordinating social attention depends on visual awareness. Furthermore, subliminal eye contact might have an impact on subsequent social attention processes that differ from supraliminal eye contact. This study highlights the need to further investigate the role of eye contact in implicit social cognition.
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- 2018
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8. Editorial: Typical and Atypical Processing of Gaze.
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Ashwin, Chris and Ricciardelli, Paola
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GAZE ,PERIPHERAL vision ,SOCIAL perception ,PSYCHOPHYSICS - Published
- 2019
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9. The Effect of Eye Contact Is Contingent on Visual Awareness.
- Author
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Xu, Shan, Zhang, Shen, and Geng, Haiyan
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EYE contact ,AWARENESS ,SOCIAL perception ,FACE perception ,AUTOPOIESIS - Abstract
The present study explored how eye contact at different levels of visual awareness influences gaze-induced joint attention. We adopted a spatial-cueing paradigm, in which an averted gaze was used as an uninformative central cue for a joint-attention task. Prior to the onset of the averted-gaze cue, either supraliminal (Experiment 1) or subliminal (Experiment 2) eye contact was presented. The results revealed a larger subsequent gaze-cueing effect following supraliminal eye contact compared to a no-contact condition. In contrast, the gaze-cueing effect was smaller in the subliminal eye-contact condition than in the no-contact condition. These findings suggest that the facilitation effect of eye contact on coordinating social attention depends on visual awareness. Furthermore, subliminal eye contact might have an impact on subsequent social attention processes that differ from supraliminal eye contact. This study highlights the need to further investigate the role of eye contact in implicit social cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. Reductions in regional theta power and fronto-parietal theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling during gaze processing in bipolar disorder.
- Author
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Lasagna, Carly A., Grove, Tyler B., Semple, Erin, Suzuki, Takakuni, Menkes, Margo W., Pamidighantam, Preetha, McInnis, Melvin, Deldin, Patricia J., and Tso, Ivy F.
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GAZE , *BIPOLAR disorder , *STIMULUS & response (Psychology) , *SOCIAL perception , *NEUROBIOLOGY , *DATA recorders & recording , *TRANSLATIONAL research , *TEMPOROPARIETAL junction - Abstract
• Neural oscillations during gaze processing were examined in bipolar disorder (BD). • Midline anterior and left posterior theta power were diminished in BD. • BD had reduced bottom-up and top-down theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling. • These reductions were related to slower response times during gaze discrimination. Impaired social cognition is common in bipolar disorder (BD) and predicts poor functional outcomes. A critical determinant of social cognition is the ability to discriminate others' gaze direction, and its alteration may contribute to functional impairment in BD. However, the neural mechanisms underlying gaze processing in BD are unclear. Because neural oscillations are crucial neurobiological mechanisms supporting cognition, we aimed to understand their role in gaze processing in BD. Using electroencephalography (EEG) data recorded during a gaze discrimination task for 38 BD and 34 controls (HC), we examined: theta and gamma power over bilateral posterior and midline anterior locations associated with early face processing and higher-level cognitive processing, and theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) between locations. Compared to HC, BD showed reduced midline-anterior and left-posterior theta power, and diminished bottom-up/top-down theta-gamma PAC between anterior/posterior sites. Reduced theta power and theta-gamma PAC related to slower response times. These findings suggest that altered theta oscillations and anterior-posterior cross-frequency coupling between areas associated with higher-level cognition and early face processing may underlie impaired gaze processing in BD. This is a crucial step towards translational research that may inform novel social cognitive interventions (e.g., neuromodulation to target specific oscillatory dynamics) to improve functioning in BD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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11. Gaze direction and face orientation modulate perceptual sensitivity to faces under interocular suppression
- Author
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Renzo C. Lanfranco, Timo Stein, Hugh Rabagliati, and David Carmel
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Multidisciplinary ,genetic structures ,Face ,face processing ,interocular suppression ,Fixation, Ocular ,gaze processing ,unconscious processing ,Head ,Photic Stimulation ,signal detection theory - Abstract
Faces convey information essential for social interaction. Their importance has prompted suggestions that some facial features may be processed unconsciously. Although some studies have provided empirical support for this idea, it remains unclear whether these findings were due to perceptual processing or to post-perceptual decisional factors. Evidence for unconscious processing of facial features has predominantly come from the Breaking Continuous Flash Suppression (b-CFS) paradigm, which measures the time it takes different stimuli to overcome interocular suppression. For example, previous studies have found that upright faces are reported faster than inverted faces, and direct-gaze faces are reported faster than averted-gaze faces. However, this procedure suffers from important problems: observers can decide how much information they receive before committing to a report, so their detection responses may be influenced by differences in decision criteria and by stimulus identification. Here, we developed a new procedure that uses predefined exposure durations, enabling independent measurement of perceptual sensitivity and decision criteria. We found higher detection sensitivity to both upright and direct-gaze (compared to inverted and averted-gaze) faces, with no effects on decisional factors. For identification, we found both greater sensitivity and more liberal criteria for upright faces. Our findings demonstrate that face orientation and gaze direction influence perceptual sensitivity, indicating that these facial features may be processed unconsciously.
- Published
- 2022
12. Automatic attentional orienting to other people’s gaze in schizophrenia.
- Author
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Langdon, Robyn, Seymour, Kiley, Williams, Tracey, and Ward, Philip B.
- Subjects
- *
SCHIZOPHRENIA , *SOCIAL perception , *MEDICAL photography , *PERITECTIC reactions , *EYE contact - Abstract
Explicit tests of social cognition have revealed pervasive deficits in schizophrenia. Less is known of automatic social cognition in schizophrenia. We used a spatial orienting task to investigate automatic shifts of attention cued by another person’s eye gaze in 29 patients and 28 controls. Central photographic images of a face with eyes shifted left or right, or looking straight ahead, preceded targets that appeared left or right of the cue. To examine automatic effects, cue direction was non-predictive of target location. Cue–target intervals were 100, 300, and 800 ms. In non-social control trials, arrows replaced eye-gaze cues. Both groups showed automatic attentional orienting indexed by faster reaction times (RTs) when arrows were congruent with target location across all cue–target intervals. Similar congruency effects were seen for eye-shift cues at 300 and 800 ms intervals, but patients showed significantly larger congruency effects at 800 ms, which were driven by delayed responses to incongruent target locations. At short 100-ms cue–target intervals, neither group showed faster RTs for congruent than for incongruent eye-shift cues, but patients were significantly slower to detect targets after direct-gaze cues. These findings conflict with previous studies using schematic line drawings of eye-shifts that have found automatic attentional orienting to be reduced in schizophrenia. Instead, our data indicate that patients display abnormalities in responding to gaze direction at various stages of gaze processing—reflected by a stronger preferential capture of attention by another person’s direct eye contact at initial stages of gaze processing and difficulties disengaging from a gazed-at location once shared attention is established. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2017
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13. Assessing early processing of eye gaze in schizophrenia: measuring the cone of direct gaze and reflexive orienting of attention.
- Author
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Seymour, Kiley, Rhodes, Gillian, McGuire, Jonathan, Williams, Nikolas, Jeffery, Linda, and Langdon, Robyn
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SCHIZOPHRENIA , *PEOPLE with schizophrenia , *GAZE & psychology , *SOCIAL perception , *DISCRIMINATION against people with disabilities - Abstract
Introduction:The accurate discrimination of another person’s eye-gaze direction is vital as it provides a cue to the gazer’s focus of attention, which in turn supports joint attention. Patients with schizophrenia have shown a “direct gaze bias” when judging gaze direction. However, current tasks do not dissociate an early perceptual bias from high-level top-down effects. We investigated early stages of gaze processing in schizophrenia by measuring perceptual sensitivity to fine deviations in gaze direction (i.e., the cone of direct gaze: CoDG) and ability to reflexively orient to locations cued by the same deviations. Methods:Twenty-four patients and 26 controls completed a CoDG discrimination task that used realistic direct-face images with six fine degrees of deviation (i.e., 3, 6 or 9 pixels to the left and right) and direct gaze, and a gaze cueing task that assessed reflexive orienting to the same fine-grained deviations. Results:Our data showed patients exhibited no impairment in gaze discrimination, nor did we observe a reduced orienting response. Conclusions:These results suggest that while patients may suffer deficits associated with interpreting another person’s gaze, the earliest processes concerned with detecting averted gaze and reflexively orienting to the gazed-at location are intact. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2017
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14. Direct eye contact enhances mirroring of others’ movements: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study.
- Author
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Prinsen, Jellina, Bernaerts, Sylvie, Wang, Yin, de Beukelaar, Toon T., Cuypers, Koen, Swinnen, Stephan P., and Alaerts, Kaat
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EYE contact , *EYE movements , *TRANSCRANIAL magnetic stimulation , *NEUROPHYSIOLOGY , *EVOKED potentials (Electrophysiology) - Abstract
Direct eye contact is a powerful social cue to regulate interpersonal interactions. Previous behavioral studies showed a link between eye contact and motor mimicry, indicating that the automatic mimicry of observed hand movements is significantly enhanced when direct eye contact exists between the observer and the observed model. In the present study, we aim to investigate the neurophysiological basis of the previously reported behavioral enhancements. Here, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to assess changes in cortico-motor excitability at the level of the primary motor cortex (M1) to explore whether and how the motor system is facilitated from observing others’ hand movements and, in particular, how this process is modulated by eye contact. To do so, motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were collected from two hand muscles while participants received single-pulse TMS and naturally observed video clips of an actor showing hand opening movements or static hands. During the observation, either direct or averted eye gaze was established between the subject and the observed actor. Our findings show a clear effect of eye gaze on observation-induced motor facilitation. This indicates that the mapping or ‘mirroring’ of others' movements is significantly enhanced when movement observation is accompanied by direct eye gaze compared to averted eye gaze. Our results support the notion that eye contact is a powerful social signal with the ability to direct human non-verbal social behavior. Furthermore, our findings are important for understanding the role of the mirror motor system in the mapping of socially relevant actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
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15. Early averted gaze processing in the right Fusiform Gyrus: An EEG source imaging study.
- Author
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Berchio, Cristina, Rihs, Tonia A., Piguet, Camille, Dayer, Alexandre G., Aubry, Jean-Michel, and Michel, Christoph M.
- Subjects
- *
FUSIFORM gyrus , *ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY , *EVOKED potentials (Electrophysiology) , *GAZE , *TOPOGRAPHY - Abstract
Humans are able to categorize face properties with impressively short latencies. Nevertheless, the latency at which gaze recognition occurs is still a matter of debate. Through spatio-temporal analysis of high-density event-related potentials (ERP), we investigated the brain activity underlying the ability to spontaneously and quickly process gaze. We presented neutral faces with direct and averted gaze in a matching picture paradigm, where subjects had to detect repetition of identical faces and gaze was implicitly manipulated. The results indicate that faces with averted gaze were better discriminated than faces with direct gaze, and evoked stronger P100 amplitudes localized to the right fusiform gyrus. In contrast, direct gaze induced stronger activation in the orbital frontal gyrus at this latency. Later in time, at the beginning of the N170 component, direct gaze induced changes in scalp topography with a stronger activation in the right medial temporal gyrus. The location of these differential activations of direct vs. averted gaze further support the view that faces with averted gaze are perceived as less rewarding than faces with direct gaze. We additionally found differential ERP responses between repeated and novel faces as early as 50 ms, thereby replicating earlier studies of very fast detection of mnestic aspects of stimuli. Together, these results suggest an early dissociation between implicit gaze detection and explicit identity processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
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16. Developmentally distinct gaze processing systems: Luminance versus geometric cues.
- Author
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Doherty, Martin J., McIntyre, Alex H., and Langton, Stephen R.H.
- Subjects
- *
GAZE & psychology , *DEVELOPMENTAL psychology , *CHILD psychology , *GEOMETRIC analysis , *JUDGMENT (Psychology) , *PHILOSOPHY of mind - Abstract
Two experiments examined how the different cues to gaze direction contribute to children’s abilities to follow and make explicit judgements about gaze. In each study participants were shown blurred images of faces containing only luminance cues to gaze direction, line-drawn images containing only fine-grained detail supporting a geometric analysis of gaze direction, and unmanipulated images. In Experiment 1a, 2- and 3-year olds showed gaze-cued orienting of attention in response to unmanipulated and blurred faces, but not line-drawn faces. Adult participants showed cueing effects to line drawn faces as well as the other two types of face cue in Experiment 1b. In Experiment 2, 2-year-olds were poor at judging towards which of four objects blurred and line-drawn faces were gazing, whereas 3- and 4-year-olds performed above chance with these faces. All age groups performed above chance with unmanipulated images. These findings are consistent with an early-developing luminance-based mechanism, which supports gaze following, but which cannot initially support explicit judgements, and a later-developing mechanism, additionally using geometric cues in the eye, which supports explicit judgements about gaze. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
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17. The two-process theory of face processing: Modifications based on two decades of data from infants and adults.
- Author
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Johnson, Mark H., Senju, Atsushi, and Tomalski, Przemyslaw
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- *
DATA analysis , *COGNITIVE ability , *FACE perception , *NEURAL development , *PSYCHOLOGICAL research - Abstract
Johnson and Morton (1991. Biology and Cognitive Development: The Case of Face Recognition. Blackwell, Oxford) used Gabriel Horn's work on the filial imprinting model to inspire a two-process theory of the development of face processing in humans. In this paper we review evidence accrued over the past two decades from infants and adults, and from other primates, that informs this two-process model. While work with newborns and infants has been broadly consistent with predictions from the model, further refinements and questions have been raised. With regard to adults, we discuss more recent evidence on the extension of the model to eye contact detection, and to subcortical face processing, reviewing functional imaging and patient studies. We conclude with discussion of outstanding caveats and future directions of research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
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18. How ubiquitous is the direct-gaze advantage? Evidence for an averted-gaze advantage in a gaze-discrimination task
- Author
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Riechelmann, Eva, Gamer, Matthias, Böckler, Anne, Huestegge, Lynn, Riechelmann, Eva, Gamer, Matthias, Böckler, Anne, and Huestegge, Lynn
- Abstract
Human eye gaze conveys an enormous amount of socially relevant information, and the rapid assessment of gaze direction is of particular relevance in order to adapt behavior accordingly. Specifically, previous research demonstrated evidence for an advantage of processing direct (vs. averted) gaze. The present study examined discrimination performance for gaze direction (direct vs. averted) under controlled presentation conditions: Using a backward-masking gaze-discrimination task, photographs of faces with direct and averted gaze were briefly presented, followed by a mask stimulus. Additionally, effects of facial context on gaze discrimination were assessed by either presenting gaze direction in isolation (i.e., by only showing the eye region) or in the context of an upright or inverted face. Across three experiments, we consistently observed a facial context effect with highest discrimination performance for faces presented in upright position, lower performance for inverted faces, and lowest performance for eyes presented in isolation. Additionally, averted gaze was generally responded to faster and with higher accuracy than direct gaze, indicating an averted-gaze advantage. Overall, the results suggest that direct gaze is not generally associated with processing advantages, thereby highlighting the important role of presentation conditions and task demands in gaze perception. © 2020, The Author(s).
- Published
- 2020
19. Absence of Preferential Unconscious Processing of Eye Contact in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder.
- Author
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Akechi, Hironori, Stein, Timo, Senju, Atsushi, Kikuchi, Yukiko, Tojo, Yoshikuni, Osanai, Hiroo, and Hasegawa, Toshikazu
- Abstract
Eye contact plays an essential role in social interaction. Atypical eye contact is a diagnostic and widely reported feature of autism spectrum disorder ( ASD). Here, we determined whether altered unconscious visual processing of eye contact might underlie atypical eye contact in ASD. Using continuous flash suppression ( CFS), we found that typically developing ( TD) adolescents detected faces with a direct gaze faster than faces with an averted gaze, indicating enhanced unconscious processing of eye contact. Critically, adolescents with ASD did not show different durations of perceptual suppression for faces with direct and averted gaze, suggesting that preferential unconscious processing of eye contact is absent in this group. In contrast, in a non- CFS control experiment, both adolescents with ASD and TD adolescents detected faces with a direct gaze faster than those with an averted gaze. Another CFS experiment confirmed that unconscious processing of non-social stimuli is intact for adolescents with ASD. These results suggest that atypical processing of eye contact in individuals with ASD could be related to a weaker initial, unconscious registration of eye contact. Autism Res 2014, 7: 590-597. © 2014 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2014
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20. Towards connectivity-based imaging markers of function and dysfunction in neurological diseases
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Gschwind, Markus A.
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EEG-topography ,Microstates ,Multiple sclerosis ,Functional connectivity ,musical syntax processing ,DTI ,fMRI ,Face processing ,Prediction ,Classification ,Tractography ,Gaze processing - Abstract
Higher cognitive functions, such as the reading of intentionality in someone's face, or the judgment about an unexpected harmony in a song, are based on a complex neuronal interaction between multiple regions across the brain. These interactions can be traced by functional brain imaging techniques, and considerable effort has been given to describe normal and altered brain networks during cognitive tasks, as well as in the brain at rest. Here I present several studies that establish the structural and functional connectivity underlying selected higher cognitive tasks, as well as pathologically altered connectivity in patients at rest, with an application to multiple sclerosis. These results provide additional information about the state of the disease in every single patient, and this information can be used to additionally characterize the patient's condition. The results offer new perspectives to describe, monitor or stratify patients according to the individual profile of the altered pattern of functional networks using different modalities of functional and structural brain imaging.
- Published
- 2020
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21. Altered Activity of the Primary Visual Area during Gaze Processing in Individuals with High-Functioning Autistic Spectrum Disorder: A Magnetoencephalography Study.
- Author
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Hasegawa, Naoya, Kitamura, Hideaki, Murakami, Hiroatsu, Kameyama, Shigeki, Sasagawa, Mutsuo, Egawa, Jun, Tamura, Ryu, Endo, Taro, and Someya, Toshiyuki
- Subjects
- *
GAZE , *AUTISM spectrum disorders , *MAGNETOENCEPHALOGRAPHY , *VISION disorders , *BRAIN , *SOCIAL perception - Abstract
Background: Individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate an impaired ability to infer the mental states of others from their gaze. Thus, investigating the relationship between ASD and eye gaze processing is crucial for understanding the neural basis of social impairments seen in individuals with ASD. In addition, characteristics of ASD are observed in more comprehensive visual perception tasks. These visual characteristics of ASD have been well-explained in terms of the atypical relationship between high- and low-level gaze processing in ASD. Method: We studied neural activity during gaze processing in individuals with ASD using magnetoencephalography, with a focus on the relationship between high- and low-level gaze processing both temporally and spatially. Minimum Current Estimate analysis was applied to perform source analysis of magnetic responses to gaze stimuli. Results: The source analysis showed that later activity in the primary visual area (V1) was affected by gaze direction only in the ASD group. Conversely, the right posterior superior temporal sulcus, which is a brain region that processes gaze as a social signal, in the typically developed group showed a tendency toward greater activation during direct compared with averted gaze processing. Conclusion: These results suggest that later activity in V1 relating to gaze processing is altered or possibly enhanced in high-functioning individuals with ASD, which may underpin the social cognitive impairments in these individuals. © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
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22. Editorial: Typical and Atypical Processing of Gaze
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Paola Ricciardelli, Chris Ashwin, Ashwin, C, and Ricciardelli, P
- Subjects
eyes, gaze processing, gaze direction, mental states, attention, autism spectrum disorder ,lcsh:BF1-990 ,gaze direction ,autism spectrum disorder ,eyes ,medicine.disease ,gaze processing ,Gaze ,eye ,attention ,Editorial ,lcsh:Psychology ,Autism spectrum disorder ,Mental state ,medicine ,Psychology ,mental state ,mental states ,General Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Published
- 2019
23. Neural activity in the posterior superior temporal region during eye contact perception correlates with autistic traits.
- Author
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Hasegawa, Naoya, Kitamura, Hideaki, Murakami, Hiroatsu, Kameyama, Shigeki, Sasagawa, Mutsuo, Egawa, Jun, Endo, Taro, and Someya, Toshiyuki
- Subjects
- *
MAGNETOENCEPHALOGRAPHY , *EYE contact , *GAZE & psychology , *DIAGNOSIS of autism , *AUTISM spectrum disorders , *BRAIN diseases , *PREFRONTAL cortex - Abstract
Highlights: [•] Brain activity related to gaze processing was examined with magnetoencephalography. [•] Association between gaze-related activity and autistic traits was investigated. [•] Right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) activity was sensitive to gaze. [•] Activity in the medial prefrontal regions was sensitive to gaze. [•] Activity in the right pSTS for direct gaze correlated with AQ score. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2013
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24. Cultural background modulates how we look at other persons’ gaze.
- Author
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Senju, Atsushi, Vernetti, Angélina, Kikuchi, Yukiko, Akechi, Hironori, Hasegawa, Toshikazu, and Johnson, Mark H.
- Subjects
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EYE movements , *GAZE , *CROSS-cultural studies , *EYE contact , *MANNERS & customs - Abstract
The current study investigated the role of cultural norms on the development of face-scanning. British and Japanese adults’ eye movements were recorded while they observed avatar faces moving their mouth, and then their eyes toward or away from the participants. British participants fixated more on the mouth, which contrasts with Japanese participants fixating mainly on the eyes. Moreover, eye fixations of British participants were less affected by the gaze shift of the avatar than Japanese participants, who shifted their fixation to the corresponding direction of the avatar’s gaze. Results are consistent with the Western cultural norms that value the maintenance of eye contact, and the Eastern cultural norms that require flexible use of eye contact and gaze aversion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
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25. Atypical development of spontaneous social cognition in autism spectrum disorders
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Senju, Atsushi
- Subjects
- *
SOCIAL perception , *AUTISM spectrum disorders , *MATHEMATICAL models , *SOCIAL interaction , *COMMUNICATION , *TASK performance , *MEDICAL literature - Abstract
Abstract: Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have profound impairment in the development of social interaction and communication. However, it is also known that some ‘high-functioning’ individuals with ASD show apparently typical capacity to process social information in a controlled experimental settings, despite their difficulties in daily life. The current paper overviews the spontaneous social cognition, spontaneous processing of social information in the absence of explicit instruction or task demand, in individuals with ASD. Three areas of the researches, false belief attribution, imitation/mimicry, and eye gaze processing, have been reviewed. The literatures suggest that high-functioning individuals with ASD (a) do not spontaneously attribute false belief to others, even though they can easily do so when explicitly instructed, (b) can imitate others’ goal-directed actions under explicit instruction and show spontaneous mimicry of others’ actions when they attend to the action, but are less likely to show spontaneous mimicry without the task structure to navigate attention to others’ action and (c) can process others’ gaze direction and shift attention to others’ gaze directions, but fail to spontaneously attend to another person’s eyes in social and communicative context, and less likely to be prompted to respond in response to perceived eye contact. These results are consistent with the claim that individuals with ASD do not spontaneously attend to socially relevant information, even though they can easily process the same information when their attention is navigated towards it. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
26. Editorial: Typical and Atypical Processing of Gaze
- Author
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Ashwin, C, Ricciardelli, P, Ashwin, C, and Ricciardelli, P
- Published
- 2019
27. Effects of acute alcohol consumption on the perception of eye gaze direction.
- Author
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Penton-Voak, Ian S, Cooper, Robbie M, Roberts, Rachel E, Attwood, Angela S, and Munafò, Marcus R
- Subjects
- *
ALCOHOL drinking , *ALCOHOLISM , *AGGRESSION (Psychology) , *VIOLENCE ,SEX differences (Biology) - Abstract
Alcohol consumption is associated with increases in aggressive behaviour, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship are poorly understood. One mechanism by which alcohol consumption may influence behaviour is via alterations in the processing of social cues such as gaze. We investigated the effects of acute alcohol consumption on the perception of gaze, using a task in which participants determined whether a stimulus face was looking towards or away from them. Gaze direction varied across trials, allowing calculation of a threshold at which participants considered gaze to switch from direct to averted. Target faces varied in both sex and attractiveness. Thirty social drinkers attended three randomized experimental sessions. At each session, participants consumed 0.0, 0.2 or 0.4 g/kg alcohol, and completed the gaze perception task. A significant three-way interaction involving target sex, participant sex and alcohol dose indicated that alcohol increased the cone of gaze for females viewing male targets (i.e. females were biased towards making a direct gaze judgement), but decreased the cone of gaze for males viewing male targets. Our data indicate that alcohol consumption influences gaze perception, but that these effects vary across sex of both stimulus and rater. These effects may have important implications for alcohol-related violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
28. Brain Mechanisms for Processing Direct and Averted Gaze in Individuals with Autism.
- Author
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Pitskel, Naomi, Bolling, Danielle, Hudac, Caitlin, Lantz, Stephen, Minshew, Nancy, Vander Wyk, Brent, and Pelphrey, Kevin
- Subjects
- *
ANALYSIS of variance , *AUTISM , *BRAIN , *STATISTICAL correlation , *EYE , *INTELLECT , *INTERPERSONAL relations , *MAGNETIC resonance imaging , *RESEARCH funding , *TOMOGRAPHY , *VIRTUAL reality , *MULTIPLE regression analysis , *SECONDARY analysis , *DATA analysis software - Abstract
Prior studies have indicated brain abnormalities underlying social processing in autism, but no fMRI study has specifically addressed the differential processing of direct and averted gaze, a critical social cue. Fifteen adolescents and adults with autism and 14 typically developing comparison participants viewed dynamic virtual-reality videos depicting a simple but realistic social scenario, in which an approaching male figure maintained either direct or averted gaze. Significant group by condition interactions reflecting differential responses to direct versus averted gaze in people with autism relative to typically developing individuals were identified in the right temporoparietal junction, right anterior insula, left lateral occipital cortex, and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Our results provide initial evidence regarding brain mechanisms underlying the processing of gaze direction during simple social encounters, providing new insight into the social deficits in individuals with autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
29. Gaze-induced joint attention persists under high perceptual load and does not depend on awareness
- Author
-
Xu, Shan, Zhang, Shen, and Geng, Haiyan
- Subjects
- *
JOINT attention , *GAZE , *AWARENESS , *COGNITIVE ability , *TASK performance , *FACE perception , *SUBCONSCIOUSNESS , *AUTOMATICITY (Learning process) - Abstract
Abstract: The automaticity of gaze-induced joint attention is well known in relatively easy cognitive tasks; but its role in harder tasks had never been examined. This encouraged us to study automaticity in hard tasks, tasks presenting the subjects with high perceptual loads. The Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) paradigm was used to present participants with two streams of bilaterally displayed digit-flows while they fixated at the center of a synthetic representation of a human face. The face was presented both above (Experiments 1 and 2) and below (Experiment 3) the face’s visual threshold (henceforth called “supraliminal” and “subliminal”, respectively). Interocular suppression was used to make the face stimulus invisible (subliminal). In the critical trials of all three experiments, the gaze direction shown on the face was randomly diverted to either the left or to the right. This directed the participant’s gaze either towards or away from the location of a target in the RSVP. The perceptual load was always relatively high. It was either set (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated (Experiment 2) during the experiment. In all three experiments, an appreciably higher and significant level of target detection was found when an uninformative gaze-cue was congruent with the location of the target. This result, which had only been reported with relatively easy tasks previously, is called the “gaze-cueing effect”. Our novel findings include showing that: (i) the attentional effect of gaze persists under high perceptual loads, and (ii) awareness of the gaze stimuli is not required to obtain the gaze-cueing effect. They also serve to validate prior support for an important role of automaticity in gaze-induced joint attention. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
30. Eye contact facilitates awareness of faces during interocular suppression
- Author
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Stein, Timo, Senju, Atsushi, Peelen, Marius V., and Sterzer, Philipp
- Subjects
- *
EYE contact , *AWARENESS , *FACE , *GAZE , *BINOCULAR rivalry , *EXPERIMENTS , *VISUAL learning , *VISUAL evoked response - Abstract
Abstract: Eye contact captures attention and receives prioritized visual processing. Here we asked whether eye contact might be processed outside conscious awareness. Faces with direct and averted gaze were rendered invisible using interocular suppression. In two experiments we found that faces with direct gaze overcame such suppression more rapidly than faces with averted gaze. Control experiments ruled out the influence of low-level stimulus differences and differential response criteria. These results indicate an enhanced unconscious representation of direct gaze, enabling the automatic and rapid detection of other individuals making eye contact with the observer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
31. What do children with autism attend to during imitation tasks?
- Author
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Vivanti, Giacomo, Nadig, Aparna, Ozonoff, Sally, and Rogers, Sally J.
- Subjects
- *
AUTISM in children , *CHILDREN with developmental disabilities , *IMITATIVE behavior , *GESTURE - Abstract
Abstract: Individuals with autism show a complex profile of differences in imitative ability, including a general deficit in precision of imitating another’s actions and special difficulty in imitating nonmeaningful gestures relative to meaningful actions on objects. Given that they also show atypical patterns of visual attention when observing social stimuli, we investigated whether possible differences in visual attention when observing an action to be imitated may contribute to imitative difficulties in autism in both nonmeaningful gestures and meaningful actions on objects. Results indicated that (a) a group of 18 high-functioning 8- to 15-year-olds with autistic disorder, in comparison with a matched group of 13 typically developing children, showed similar patterns of visual attention to the demonstrator’s action but decreased attention to his face when observing a model to be imitated; (b) nonmeaningful gestures and meaningful actions on objects triggered distinct visual attention patterns that did not differ between groups; (c) the autism group demonstrated reduced imitative precision for both types of imitation; and (d) duration of visual attention to the demonstrator’s action was related to imitation precision for nonmeaningful gestures in the autism group. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
32. Eye-gaze processing in the broader bipolar phenotype revealed by electrical neuroimaging
- Author
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Christoph M. Michel, Alexandre Dayer, Jean-Michel Aubry, Paolo Cordera, Samika Kumar, Anne-Lise Küng, Cristina Berchio, and Camille Piguet
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Bipolar Disorder ,Social brain networks ,Offspring ,Bipolar disorder ,Neuroscience (miscellaneous) ,Neuroimaging ,Fixation, Ocular ,Premotor cortex ,03 medical and health sciences ,Young Adult ,ddc:616.89 ,0302 clinical medicine ,Gyrus ,Event-related potential ,Parietal Lobe ,medicine ,Humans ,Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and imaging ,Evoked Potentials ,Gaze processing ,business.industry ,Motor Cortex ,Precentral gyrus ,Brain ,medicine.disease ,030227 psychiatry ,Frontal Lobe ,ddc:616.8 ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Affect ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Phenotype ,Female ,business ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,ERP ,Motor cortex - Abstract
Previous studies have documented atypical brain responses to faces in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) and in their relatives. In view of previous findings of atypical face processing in youths at risk for BD, the aim of this study was to examine whether BD patients and offspring would show differential activation in networks of the social brain when processing eye-gaze. Data from 18 euthymic BD patients and 18 offspring, as well as 36 age-matched healthy controls, were collected using a delayed face-matching paradigm, event related potentials and electrical neuroimaging methods. The P200 component, which is implicated in facial cues decoding, differentiated the BD groups from their age-matched controls. P200 source reconstruction indicates impairments conveyed by eye-contact in a network involved in experiencing others' social intentions in BD patients (supplementary motor cortex, precentral gyrus, inferior parietal lobe), and the engagement of compensatory prefrontal mechanisms for modulating these functions in BD offspring. When viewing faces that had an averted gaze, BD patients and offspring showed a hypo-activation, compared to controls, particularly in regions involved in experiencing others' feelings (post-central gyrus in BD patients / ventral premotor cortex in offspring). Therefore, the neural mechanism for decoding shifts in eye-gaze may be a familial characteristic of BD.
- Published
- 2019
33. The Effect of Eye Contact Is Contingent on Visual Awareness
- Author
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Shen Zhang, Haiyan Geng, and Shan Xu
- Subjects
Joint attention ,genetic structures ,media_common.quotation_subject ,lcsh:BF1-990 ,Eye contact ,eye contact ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Social cognition ,Contrast (vision) ,Psychology ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,General Psychology ,media_common ,Original Research ,joint attention ,05 social sciences ,Subliminal stimuli ,Visual awareness ,gaze processing ,Gaze ,eye diseases ,implicit social cognition ,visual awareness ,lcsh:Psychology ,Facilitation ,sense organs ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
The present study explored how eye contact at different levels of visual awareness influences gaze-induced joint attention. We adopted a spatial-cueing paradigm, in which an averted gaze was used as an uninformative central cue for a joint-attention task. Prior to the onset of the averted-gaze cue, either supraliminal (Experiment 1) or subliminal (Experiment 2) eye contact was presented. The results revealed a larger subsequent gaze-cueing effect following supraliminal eye contact compared to a no-contact condition. In contrast, the gaze-cueing effect was smaller in the subliminal eye-contact condition than in the no-contact condition. These findings suggest that the facilitation effect of eye contact on coordinating social attention depends on visual awareness. Furthermore, subliminal eye contact might have an impact on subsequent social attention processes that differ from supraliminal eye contact. This study highlights the need to further investigate the role of eye contact in implicit social cognition.
- Published
- 2018
34. USING THE DIAMETRICAL MODEL TO EXAMINE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE AUTISM AND PSYCHOSIS SPECTRA
- Author
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Sierro, Guillaume
- Subjects
schizotypy ,personality traits ,autism ,face processing ,gaze processing ,schizotypie ,traits de personnalité ,autisme ,traitement facial ,traitement du regard - Abstract
Schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders (SSD; ASD) share clinical features, although considered distinct. Theories contrast ASD and SSD social cognition. The reasoning for this thesis is based on dimensional models of personality spanning from the healthy to pathological variations. Under this scenario, do some healthy autistic traits oppose to schizotypic ones on a Mentalism continuum? Also, does this psychometric opposition correspond to a behavioural one, f.i. in processing face and gaze? First, we validated schizotypic and autistic trait questionnaires in French. Second, we identified shared and diametrical traits. Third, we conducted 3 experiments to measure face pareidolia-proneness. We expected larger pareidolia-proneness with larger positive schizotypy, and smaller autistic trait scores. Fourth, we assessed gaze direction discrimination, and gaze cueing of attention. We expected larger sensitivity to gaze with larger positive schizotypy, but a smaller one with larger autistic traits. Psychometrically, we replicated oppositions between autistic mentalizing deficits and positive schizotypic traits. Although pareidolia-proneness was unrelated to personality, configural face processing was impaired with larger positive schizotypy, but preserved with smaller autistic mentalizing deficits scores. Also, gaze sensitivity was decreased in men with larger autistic mentalizing traits, but unassociated with positive schizotypy. Our results partially support ASD-SSD opposition in social cognition, to be further confirmed by future studies. Pareidolia-proneness may be better measured using other measurement strategies. Gaze direction attribution might better contrast ASD and SSD. Comparisons of resembling disorder-related phenotypes is promising for understanding underlying aetiological mechanisms, notably using a transdiagnostic approach associating personality, cognitive styles, endophenotypes, and multidimensional or network models. -- Les troubles des spectres schizophréniques et autistiques (TSS; TSA) sont cliniquement ressemblants, mais catégoriellement distincts. Des théories opposent la cognition sociale des TSA et TSS. Le raisonnement de cette thèse se base sur les modèles dimensionnels de la personnalité comme reliant normal et pathologique. Aussi, certains traits autistiques s'opposent-ils aux traits schizotypiques ? Une opposition psychométrique correspond-elle à une opposition comportementale, i.e. dans le traitement des visages et du regard ? Premièrement, nous avons validé les questionnaires de personnalité schizotypiques et autistiques. Deuxièmement, nous avons identifié les traits partagés et opposés. Troisièmement, nous avons conduit 3 expériences sur la paréidolie facial, que nous attendions associée à plus de schizotypie positive et moins de traits autistiques. Quatrièmement, nous avons examiné la discrimination de la direction du regard et la redirection de l'attention par le regard, que nous attendions associées à plus de schizotypie positive et moins de traits autistiques. Au niveau psychométrique, nous avons répliqués les oppositions entre traits autistiques de mentalisation déficitaire et traits schizotypiques positifs. Bien que paréidolie et personnalité étaient sans liens, le traitement configural des informations faciales était péjoré avec plus de schizotypie positive, mais préservé avec plus de déficits autistiques de mentalisation. Aussi, la sensibilité au regard était moindre chez les hommes avec plus de déficits autistiques de mentalisation, mais sans lien avec la schizotypie positive. Nos résultats soutiennent partiellement une opposition TSA-TSS de la cognition sociale, à confirmer par de futures études. La tendance à la paréidolie gagnerait à être mesurée par d'autres stratégies. L'attribution de la direction du regard pourrait mieux distinguer TSA et TSS. La comparaison de phénotypes psychiatriques resemblants est une approche prometteuse pour comprendre des méchanismes étiologiques sous-jacents, notamment par une approche transdiagnostique associant la personnalité, les styles cognitifs, les endophénotypes, des modèles multidimensionels ou en réseau.
- Published
- 2018
35. The two-process theory of face processing: Modifications based on two decades of data from infants and adults
- Author
-
Atsushi Senju, Mark H. Johnson, and Przemyslaw Tomalski
- Subjects
Adult ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Models, Neurological ,Eye contact ,Face (sociological concept) ,Imprinting, Psychological ,Face detection ,Pulvinar ,Conlern ,psyc ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Process theory ,Cognitive development ,Animals ,Humans ,Attention ,Two-process theory of face processing development ,Gaze processing ,Superior colliculus ,Infant, Newborn ,Brain ,Infant ,Amygdala ,Imitative Behavior ,Filial imprinting ,Facial Expression ,Functional imaging ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Conspec ,Sub-cortical face pathway ,Psychology ,Facial Recognition ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Johnson and Morton (1991. Biology and Cognitive Development: The Case of Face Recognition. Blackwell, Oxford) used Gabriel Horn's work on the filial imprinting model to inspire a two-process theory of the development of face processing in humans. In this paper we review evidence accrued over the past two decades from infants and adults, and from other primates, that informs this two-process model. While work with newborns and infants has been broadly consistent with predictions from the model, further refinements and questions have been raised. With regard to adults, we discuss more recent evidence on the extension of the model to eye contact detection, and to subcortical face processing, reviewing functional imaging and patient studies. We conclude with discussion of outstanding caveats and future directions of research in this field.
- Published
- 2015
36. Direct eye contact enhances mirroring of others' movements: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study
- Author
-
Yin Wang, Jellina Prinsen, Sylvie Bernaerts, Koen Cuypers, Toon T. de Beukelaar, Kaat Alaerts, and Stephan P. Swinnen
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Mirror system ,genetic structures ,Eye Movements ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,medicine.medical_treatment ,Eye contact ,Motion Perception ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Neuropsychological Tests ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Behavioral Neuroscience ,Young Adult ,0302 clinical medicine ,Motor system ,medicine ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Interpersonal Relations ,Muscle, Skeletal ,Social Behavior ,Eye Movement Measurements ,Mirror neuron ,Gaze processing ,Movement observation ,Communication ,movement observation ,gaze processing ,eye contact ,mirror-motor system ,transcranial magnetic stimulation ,business.industry ,Electromyography ,05 social sciences ,Motor Cortex ,Eye movement ,Evoked Potentials, Motor ,Hand ,Imitative Behavior ,Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ,Transcranial magnetic stimulation ,Eye tracking ,Female ,Primary motor cortex ,Psychology ,business ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Direct eye contact is a powerful social cue to regulate interpersonal interactions. Previous behavioral studies showed a link between eye contact and motor mimicry, indicating that the automatic mimicry of observed hand movements is significantly enhanced when direct eye contact exists between the observer and the observed model. In the present study, we aim to investigate the neurophysiological basis of the previously reported behavioral enhancements. Here, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied to assess changes in cortico-motor excitability at the level of the primary motor cortex (M1) to explore whether and how the motor system is facilitated from observing others’ hand movements and, in particular, how this process is modulated by eye contact. To do so, motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were collected from two hand muscles while participants received single-pulse TMS and naturally observed video clips of an actor showing hand opening movements or static hands. During the bservation, either direct or averted eye gaze was established between the subject and the observed actor. Our findings show a clear effect of eye gaze on observation-induced motor facilitation. This indicates that the mapping or mirroring’ of others' movements is significantly enhanced when movement observation is accompanied by direct eye gaze compared to averted eye gaze. Our results support the notion that eye contact is a powerful social signal with the ability to direct human non-verbal social behavior. Furthermore, our findings are important for understanding the role of the mirror motor system in the mapping of socially relevant actions. publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Direct eye contact enhances mirroring of others’ movements: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study journaltitle: Neuropsychologia articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.12.011 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ispartof: Neuropsychologia vol:95 pages:111-118 ispartof: location:England status: published
- Published
- 2016
37. World of faces, words and actions : Observations and neural linkages in early life
- Author
-
Handl, Andrea
- Subjects
mu desynchronization ,genetic structures ,Infant development ,crossmodal integration ,action perception ,EEG ,Eye-tracking ,third-party interactions ,gaze processing ,speech processing ,imitation - Abstract
From the start of their lives, infants and young children are surrounded by a tremendous amount of multimodal social information. One intriguing question in the study of early social cognition is how vital social information is detected and processed and how and when young infants begin to make sense of what they see and hear and learn to understand other people’s behavior. The overall aim of this thesis was to provide new insights to this exciting field. Investigating behavior and/or neural mechanisms in early life, the three different studies included in this thesis therefore strive to increase our understanding on perception and processing of social information. Study I used eye-tracking to examine infants´ observations of gaze in a third-party context. The results showed that 9-, 16- and 24-month-old infants differentiate between the body orientations of two individuals on the basis of static visual information. More particularly, they shift their gaze more often between them when the social partners face each other than when they are turned away from each other. Using ERP technique, Study II demonstrated that infants at the age of 4 to 5 months show signs of integrating visual and auditory information at a neural level. Further, direct gaze in combination with backwards-spoken words leads to earlier or enhanced neural processing in comparison to other gaze-word combinations. Study III, also an EEG investigation, found that children between 18 and 30 months of age show a desynchronization of the mu rhythm during both the observation and execution of object-directed actions. Also, the results suggest motor system activation when young children observe others’ mimed actions. To summarize, the findings reported in this thesis strengthen the idea that infants are sensitive to others´ gaze and that this may extend to third-party contexts. Also, gaze is processed together with other information, for instance words, even before infants are able to understand others’ vocabulary. Furthermore, the motor system in young children is active during both the observation and imitation of another person’s goal-directed actions. This is in line with findings in infants, children and adults, indicating that these processes are linked at neural level.
- Published
- 2016
38. Gaze-induced joint attention persists under high perceptual load and does not depend on awareness
- Author
-
Shan Xu, Haiyan Geng, and Shen Zhang
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Elementary cognitive task ,Joint attention ,Adolescent ,media_common.quotation_subject ,ComputingMethodologies_IMAGEPROCESSINGANDCOMPUTERVISION ,Automaticity ,Unconsciousness ,Visual awareness ,Young Adult ,Perception ,Humans ,Attention ,Visual threshold ,Gaze processing ,media_common ,Communication ,business.industry ,Subliminal stimuli ,Awareness ,Gaze ,Sensory Systems ,Ophthalmology ,Rapid serial visual presentation ,Visual Perception ,Female ,Interocular suppression ,Cues ,Psychology ,business ,Photic Stimulation ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
The automaticity of gaze-induced joint attention is well known in relatively easy cognitive tasks; but its role in harder tasks had never been examined. This encouraged us to study automaticity in hard tasks, tasks presenting the subjects with high perceptual loads. The Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) paradigm was used to present participants with two streams of bilaterally displayed digit-flows while they fixated at the center of a synthetic representation of a human face. The face was presented both above (Experiments 1 and 2) and below (Experiment 3) the face’s visual threshold (henceforth called “supraliminal” and “subliminal”, respectively). Interocular suppression was used to make the face stimulus invisible (subliminal). In the critical trials of all three experiments, the gaze direction shown on the face was randomly diverted to either the left or to the right. This directed the participant’s gaze either towards or away from the location of a target in the RSVP. The perceptual load was always relatively high. It was either set (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated (Experiment 2) during the experiment. In all three experiments, an appreciably higher and significant level of target detection was found when an uninformative gaze-cue was congruent with the location of the target. This result, which had only been reported with relatively easy tasks previously, is called the “gaze-cueing effect”. Our novel findings include showing that: (i) the attentional effect of gaze persists under high perceptual loads, and (ii) awareness of the gaze stimuli is not required to obtain the gaze-cueing effect. They also serve to validate prior support for an important role of automaticity in gaze-induced joint attention.
- Published
- 2011
39. Developmentally distinct gaze processing systems: luminance versus geometric cues
- Author
-
Stephen R. H. Langton, Martin J. Doherty, and Alex H. McIntyre
- Subjects
Adult ,Male ,Aging ,Linguistics and Language ,Eye Movements ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Luminance gaze cues ,Luminance ,Language and Linguistics ,Age groups ,Orientation ,Theory of mind ,Reaction Time ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,Humans ,Attention ,Child development ,Gaze processing ,Communication ,business.industry ,Age Factors ,Geometrical gaze cues ,Gaze ,Child, Preschool ,Face (geometry) ,Female ,Cues ,business ,Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Two experiments examined how the different cues to gaze direction contribute to children’s abilities to follow and make explicit judgments about gaze. In each study participants were shown blurred images of faces containing only luminance cues to gaze direction, line-drawn images containing only fine-grained detail supporting a geometric analysis of gaze direction, and unmanipulated images. In Experiment 1a, 2- and 3- year olds showed gaze-cued orienting of attention in response to unmanipulated and blurred faces, but not line-drawn faces. Adult participants showed cueing effects to line drawn faces as well as the other two types of face cue in Experiment 1b. In Experiment 2, 2-year-olds were poor at judging toward which of four objects blurred and line-drawn faces were gazing, whereas 3- and 4-year-olds performed above chance with these faces. All age groups performed above chance with unmanipulated images. These findings are consistent with an early-developing luminance-based mechanism, which supports gaze following, but which cannot initially support explicit judgments, and a later-developing mechanism, additionally using geometric cues in the eye, which supports explicit judgments about gaze.
- Published
- 2015
40. 高機能自閉症者の健常者とは異なる視線認知時における一次視覚野の活動:脳磁図による研究
- Author
-
Hasegawa, Naoya
- Subjects
genetic structures ,Autistic spectrum disorder ,mental disorders ,Primary visual area ,Magnetoencephalography ,behavioral disciplines and activities ,Minimum current estimates ,Gaze processing ,Social cognition - Abstract
Background: Individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate an impaired ability to infer the mental states of others from their gaze. Thus, investigating the relationship between ASD and eye gaze processing is crucial for understanding the neural basis of social impairments seen in individuals with ASD. In addition, characteristics of ASD are observed in more comprehensive visual perception tasks. These visual characteristics of ASD have been well-explained in terms of the atypical relationship between high and low-level gaze processing in ASD. Method: We studied neural activity during gaze processing in individuals with ASD using magnetoencephalography, with a focus on the relationship between high and low-level gaze processing both temporally and spatially. Minimum current estimate analysis was applied to perform source analysis of magnetic responses to gaze stimuli. Results: The source analysis showed that later activity in the primary visual area (V1) was affected by gaze direction only in the ASD group. Conversely, the right posterior superior temporal sulcus, which is a brain region that processes gaze as a social signal, in the typically developed group showed a tendency toward greater activation during direct compared with averted gaze processing. Conclusion: These results suggest that later activity in V1 relating to gaze processing is altered or possibly enhanced in high-functioning individuals with ASD, which may underpin the social cognitive impairments in these individuals., 学位の種類: 博士(医学). 報告番号: 甲第3859号. 学位記番号: 新大院博(医)甲第599号. 学位授与年月日: 平成26年3月24日, Neuropsychobiology. 2013, 68(3), 181-188, 新大院博(医)甲第599号
- Published
- 2014
41. Cultural background modulates how we look at other persons' gaze
- Author
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Angelina Vernetti, Toshikazu Hasegawa, Mark H. Johnson, Hironori Akechi, Atsushi Senju, and Yukiko Kikuchi
- Subjects
Visual perception ,Social Psychology ,genetic structures ,Eye contact ,eye contact ,Education ,psyc ,Developmental Neuroscience ,Cultural diversity ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,face scanning ,Life-span and Life-course Studies ,Avatar ,eye-tracking ,Eye movement ,Articles ,Fixation (psychology) ,gaze processing ,Gaze ,eye diseases ,cross-cultural study ,Eye tracking ,sense organs ,Psychology ,Social psychology ,Social Sciences (miscellaneous) - Abstract
The current study investigated the role of cultural norms on the development of face-scanning. British and Japanese adults’ eye movements were recorded while they observed avatar faces moving their mouth, and then their eyes toward or away from the participants. British participants fixated more on the mouth, which contrasts with Japanese participants fixating mainly on the eyes. Moreover, eye fixations of British participants were less affected by the gaze shift of the avatar than Japanese participants, who shifted their fixation to the corresponding direction of the avatar’s gaze. Results are consistent with the Western cultural norms that value the maintenance of eye contact, and the Eastern cultural norms that require flexible use of eye contact and gaze aversion.
- Published
- 2013
42. Influence of Eye Gaze on Spoken Word Processing: An ERP Study With Infants
- Author
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Parise, Eugenio, Handl, Andrea, Palumbo, Letizia, Friederici, Angela D., Parise, Eugenio, Handl, Andrea, Palumbo, Letizia, and Friederici, Angela D.
- Abstract
Eye gaze is an important communicative signal, both as mutual eye contact and as referential gaze to objects. To examine whether attention to speech versus nonspeech stimuli in 4- to 5-month-olds (n = 15) varies as a function of eye gaze, event-related brain potentials were used. Faces with mutual or averted gaze were presented in combination with forward- or backward-spoken words. Infants rapidly processed gaze and spoken words in combination. A late Slow Wave suggests an interaction of the 2 factors, separating backward-spoken word + direct gaze from all other conditions. An additional experiment (n = 15) extended the results to referential gaze. The current findings suggest that interactions between visual and auditory cues are present early in infancy.
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
43. Dysfunctional gaze processing in bipolar disorder.
- Author
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Berchio C, Piguet C, Michel CM, Cordera P, Rihs TA, Dayer AG, and Aubry JM
- Subjects
- Adult, Attention physiology, Electroencephalography, Emotions physiology, Evoked Potentials, Visual physiology, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Visual Perception physiology, Bipolar Disorder physiopathology, Brain physiopathology, Fixation, Ocular physiology
- Abstract
Gaze conveys emotional information, and humans present sensitivity to its direction from the earliest days of life. Bipolar disorder is a disease characterized by fluctuating states of emotional and cognitive dysregulation. To explore the role of attentional control on face processing in bipolar patients (BP) we used gaze direction as an emotion modulation parameter in a two-back Working Memory (WM) task while high-density EEG data were acquired. Since gaze direction influences emotional attributions to faces with neutral expressions as well, we presented neutral faces with direct and averted gaze. Nineteen euthymic BP and a sample of age- and gender-matched controls were examined. In BP we observed diminished P200 and augmented P300 evoked responses, differentially modulated by non-repeated or repeated faces, as well as by gaze direction. BP showed a reduced P200 amplitude, significantly stronger for faces with direct gaze than averted gaze. Source localization of P200 indicated decreased activity in sensory-motor regions and frontal areas suggestive of abnormal affective processing of neutral faces. The present study provides neurophysiological evidence for abnormal gaze processing in BP and suggests dysfunctional processing of direct eye contact as a prominent characteristic of bipolar disorder.
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
44. Absence of preferential unconscious processing of eye contact in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.
- Author
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Akechi H, Stein T, Senju A, Kikuchi Y, Tojo Y, Osanai H, and Hasegawa T
- Subjects
- Adolescent, Analysis of Variance, Child, Face, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Reaction Time, Social Behavior, Young Adult, Adolescent Behavior psychology, Child Development Disorders, Pervasive psychology, Fixation, Ocular, Unconscious, Psychology
- Abstract
Eye contact plays an essential role in social interaction. Atypical eye contact is a diagnostic and widely reported feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we determined whether altered unconscious visual processing of eye contact might underlie atypical eye contact in ASD. Using continuous flash suppression (CFS), we found that typically developing (TD) adolescents detected faces with a direct gaze faster than faces with an averted gaze, indicating enhanced unconscious processing of eye contact. Critically, adolescents with ASD did not show different durations of perceptual suppression for faces with direct and averted gaze, suggesting that preferential unconscious processing of eye contact is absent in this group. In contrast, in a non-CFS control experiment, both adolescents with ASD and TD adolescents detected faces with a direct gaze faster than those with an averted gaze. Another CFS experiment confirmed that unconscious processing of non-social stimuli is intact for adolescents with ASD. These results suggest that atypical processing of eye contact in individuals with ASD could be related to a weaker initial, unconscious registration of eye contact., (© 2014 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
45. 自閉症スペクトラム障害の社会的認知の特異性-視線処理と動作模倣からの検討-
- Subjects
社会的認知 ,視線処理 ,動作模倣 ,自閉症スペクトラム障害 ,social cognition ,imitation of actions ,Autism spectrum disorder ,gaze processing - Abstract
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