Atypical scanning strategies of emotional faces for individuals with high autistic traits.

Researchers studied how people with high autism traits look at facial expressions differently than those with low autism traits. They found that people with high autism traits were less accurate at recognizing negative emotions like sadness and anger. They also looked more at people's mouths and less at their eyes when viewing faces, which is different from typical viewing patterns. These differences might help identify people at higher risk for autism.

This eye-tracking study examined facial emotion recognition in 42 college students divided into high autistic traits (HAT) and low autistic traits (LAT) groups using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient. Participants viewed facial expressions with four emotions (happy, neutral, sad, angry) at three angles (0°, 45°, 90°) while their eye movements were recorded. HAT individuals demonstrated significantly lower recognition accuracy for negative emotions and reduced pupil diameter, indicating poor autonomic nervous arousal. They also showed atypical scanning patterns, spending significantly more time fixating on mouth areas and less time on eye regions compared to LAT participants.

The researchers propose these findings could serve as objective biomarkers for screening high autistic traits populations.

Eye-tracking technology may offer objective screening tools for identifying high autistic traits in typical populations. Atypical face scanning patterns could inform early intervention targets focusing on emotion recognition skills and social attention patterns.

Single small study with 42 participants from college population only. Limited generalizability to broader autism spectrum or different age groups. Study methodology details not fully described in abstract. No information provided about diagnostic validation or long-term outcomes.

Autism has become one of the primary diseases causing disability in children, and the incidence has risen rapidly in recent years. The preclinical study on individuals with high autistic traits is extremely important to reduce genetic risks of autism because high autistic traits is the susceptibility marker of autism. However, few studies explored the face scanning pattern of people with high autistic traits in typical developing populations. In this study, we designed a facial emotion recognition experiment including four emotions (happy, neutral, sad, angry) and three angles (0°, 45°, 90°) , and informed the participants to identify the facial emotion.

Forty-two college students with typical development were recruited and divided into high autistic traits (HAT) group and low autistic traits (LAT) group by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, and we collected the eye movement data using eye-tracking technology when they performed the task. The response time, recognition accuracy, AOI based proportional fixation time and pupil diameter were computed and analyzed for both groups. HATs showed significantly lower recognition accuracy and lower pupil diameter than LATs when recognizing negative emotions (P<0.05) , indicating HATs kept poor autonomic nervous arousal. What ' s more, the proportional fixation time of HATs were significantly more in mouth area but less in eye area than that of LAT group (P<0.05) , revealed HATs had an atypical emotional faces scanning strategies that paid less attention to eyes and more attention to mouth.

Our research provides a feasible objective biomarker for screening high autistic traits population.