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Getting a Grip on Social Gaze: Control over Others’ Gaze Helps Gaze Detection in High-Functioning Autism

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Abstract

We investigated the influence of control over a social stimulus on the ability to detect direct gaze in high-functioning autism (HFA). In a pilot study, 19 participants with and 19 without HFA were compared on a gaze detection and a gaze setting task. Participants with HFA were less accurate in detecting direct gaze in the detection task, but did not differ in their ability to establish direct gaze in the setting task. In the main experiment, the results of the pilot study were replicated with 37 participants with and 39 without HFA, suggesting that individuals with HFA have a specific deficit in the passive perception of social cues as opposed to the active control, which seems to be intact.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a project grant of the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF “Social Gaze: Phenomenology and neurobiology of dysfunctions in high-functioning autism (HFA)”) to Gary Bente and Kai Vogeley.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Cologne, Richard-Strauss-Street 2, 50931, Cologne, Germany

    Thomas Dratsch, Caroline Schwartz, Kliment Yanev & Gary Bente

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Cologne, Kerpener Street 62, 50924, Cologne, Germany

    Leonhard Schilbach & Kai Vogeley

  3. Max-Planck-Institute for Neurological Research, Cologne, Germany

    Leonhard Schilbach

  4. Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine, Cognitive Neuroscience INM3, Research Center Juelich, Jülich, Germany

    Kai Vogeley

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  1. Thomas Dratsch
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Correspondence to Thomas Dratsch.

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Dratsch, T., Schwartz, C., Yanev, K. et al. Getting a Grip on Social Gaze: Control over Others’ Gaze Helps Gaze Detection in High-Functioning Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 43, 286–300 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1569-x

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