Eye Movement Patterns

[FayetheAspie]

Why Autistic Children View Faces Differently - Neuroscience News

The writers of this article seem to think that the reason for the exploratory gaze pattern of autistic people is due to some social skills comprehension deficits. Personally, I need the exploratory gaze pattern so I can assemble the visual data. If I just automatically focus on eyes only how can I even recognize someone. I may not even be able to tell you what color their hair was if I was just focused in on their eyes exclusively. I think this difference may be more of a visual difference rather than a cognitive one. Maybe neurotypicals have a broader vision field. I know that my Mama and I did a few test together of what we could see when looking at an object and she could always see a wider visual field than I could. I think that perhaps some degree of simultanagnosia may be very common among autistic people. I included a link to a description of simultanagnosia below.
Lessons

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Why Autistic Children View Faces Differently - Neuroscience News

The writers of this article seem to think that the reason for the exploratory gaze pattern of autistic people is due to some social skills comprehension deficits. Personally, I need the exploratory gaze pattern so I can assemble the visual data. If I just automatically focus on eyes only how can I even recognize someone. I may not even be able to tell you what color their hair was if I was just focused in on their eyes exclusively. I think this difference may be more of a visual difference rather than a cognitive one. Maybe neurotypicals have a broader vision field. I know that my Mama and I did a few test together of what we could see when looking at an object and she could always see a wider visual field than I could. I think that perhaps some degree of simultanagnosia may be very common among autistic people. I included a link to a description of simultanagnosia below.
Lessons

Original article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2451902224002520?via=ihub

Results​

Our analysis supported the existence of 2 common eye movement patterns that emerged across 3 eye-tracking assays. A focused pattern was characterized by small face regions of interest, which had high a probability of capturing fixations early in visual processing. In contrast, an exploratory pattern was characterized by larger face regions of interest, with a lower initial probability of fixation and more nonsocial regions of interest. In the context of social perception, children with autism showed significantly more exploratory eye movement patterns than neurotypical children across all social perception assays and all 3 longitudinal time points. Eye movement patterns were associated with clinical features of autism, including adaptive function, face recognition, and autism symptom severity.

Conclusions​

Decreased likelihood of precisely looking at faces early in social visual processing may be an important feature of autism that is associated with autism-related symptomology and may reflect less visual sensitivity to face information.

This was comparing autistic (288) and neurotypical (119) children between the ages of 6 and 11 years.

My interpretation: Interesting findings that seem to further verify what we've already known for decades (multiple studies on the topic), but the study was not about coming up with any sort of conclusion as to why. Eye tracking studies in small infants seem to suggest that this may be a way to at least suspect autism prior to understanding social skills. In other words, these eye tracking patterns appear to be present long before any sort of social skills comprehension in children. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735824000874 Without performing PET scans to look at areas of brain activation, neural density, and/or thalamus-to-hypothalamus-to-posterior pituitary signaling of oxytocin and vasopressin, for example, it would be conjecture as to why this is. 11C-UCB-J PET imaging is consistent with lower synaptic density in autistic adults - Molecular Psychiatry
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453024001112

My personal take is that I don't find people interesting. Certainly not enough to pay attention to all the subtle nuances of facial micro-expressions, body language, and voice inflection. To be blunt, I don't care. People are things I have to navigate my life around. They're mostly just in my way all the time. I am far more concerned with what was said rather than how it was said and I don't need to look at a face to communicate. I may be focusing on other things. Now, having said that, I acknowledge that I miss a lot of "between-the-lines" communication, but it's not something that I find that concerning to change my ways. As such, given the observations of autistic infants, children, and adults, this "lack of interest" in people seems to be rooted in the neural pathways associated with oxytocin. Frontiers | Eye-Tracking Reveals a Role of Oxytocin in Attention Allocation Towards Familiar Faces
Frontiers | Visual attention for social information and salivary oxytocin levels in preschool children with autism spectrum disorders: an eye-tracking study

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I notice eye movement in movies darting back and forth no idea if this is normal or acting. More with women especially in romantic scenes. Do women really do this?

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I notice eye movement in movies darting back and forth no idea if this is normal or acting. More with women especially in romantic scenes. Do women really do this?

I'm going to guess it probably has more to do with an entire camera crew present and the fact that she is acting.

I can only speak for my wife, but she doesn't do that. She's usually with her eyes closed, presumably imagining herself with someone good looking.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I do not recall my wife doing it either, but see it a lot in old movies 1930 and 40's

 

[Outdated]

Maybe neurotypicals have a broader vision field.

This is something I learnt about myself during my diagnosis, that I have a very narrow visual focus.

They showed me a video of a lady talking and asked me about what emotions she was displaying, I had no trouble with that. Then they showed me another video of the same woman talking to two other women, then they asked me something about one of the other women. I was embarrassed but I had to admit it - "I'm sorry, I didn't see, I was still watching the first lady.".

Since then I've noticed that I do tend to only look at parts of pictures at a time. I usually pick up on far more in a picture than most people but I scan the picture looking at small sections of it until I've got the full picture in my mind.

 

[Judge]

Very interesting to hear y'all on this subject. Something I've thought of for some time, in how I focus more narrowly with certain aspect ratios like a 16:9 television or film screen.

Sometimes I think my vision is emulating a center-weighted DSLR camera meter.

 

[SusanLR]

My personal take is that I don't find people interesting. Certainly not enough to pay attention to all the subtle nuances of facial micro-expressions, body language, and voice inflection.

That is part of what I thought when reading OP.
I am easily distracted from one point to another because I also want to take in all the visual info I can.
My eyes may jump from one thing that attracts my attention to another.

I had a good example of this today at a doctor's appointment.
He was a specialist that I've only seen once before. A year ago.
I didn't remember what he looked like and when he sat down in front of me and we start talking, the first thing that caught my attention about him was his ears.
They were very red compared to the rest of his face.
I wondered why.

Other things in the room were getting my attention too.
A poster on the wall. A picture of James Dean in the rain. An instrument tray that I thought didn't look particularly clean. The design on the curtains. So on and so forth.
I did look him directly in the face at least once and I can remember he had black hair with dark eyes.
Will I remember what he looks like in another year? Doubtful.
The poster and the photo of James Dean are well imprinted on my memory though.

I notice eye movement in movies darting back and forth no idea if this is normal or acting.

I still notice that with some actors in modern movies.
Women more than men, yes.
I did read an article in a magazine some years ago that the reason some people do this without thinking is a way of calming themselves when they are rather nervous.
And this is the basis for creating EMDR therapy.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy.

 

[FayetheAspie]

That is part of what I thought when reading OP.
I am easily distracted from one point to another because I also want to take in all the visual info I can.
My eyes may jump from one thing that attracts my attention to another.

I had a good example of this today at a doctor's appointment.
He was a specialist that I've only seen once before. A year ago.
I didn't remember what he looked like and when he sat down in front of me and we start talking, the first thing that caught my attention about him was his ears.
They were very red compared to the rest of his face.
I wondered why.

Other things in the room were getting my attention too.
A poster on the wall. A picture of James Dean in the rain. An instrument tray that I thought didn't look particularly clean. The design on the curtains. So on and so forth.
I did look him directly in the face at least once and I can remember he had black hair with dark eyes.
Will I remember what he looks like in another year? Doubtful.
The poster and the photo of James Dean are well imprinted on my memory though.


I still notice that with some actors in modern movies.
Women more than men, yes.
I did read an article in a magazine some years ago that the reason some people do this without thinking is a way of calming themselves when they are rather nervous.
And this is the basis for creating EMDR therapy.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy.

The glancing between different objects is very familiar and seems to make people suspiciousofme. I used to think it only connected to ADHD. I still think vision plays a role somehow though because apparently others see the whole room and know what is there without moving their eyes or so it seems.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

The glancing between different objects is very familiar and seems to make people suspiciousofme. I used to think it only connected to ADHD. I still think vision plays a role somehow though because apparently others see the whole room and know what is there without moving their eyes or so it seems.

I think you are correct. It is often noted how many of us can focus upon small details. I hear this often, almost a stereotype. I notice it with myself all the time. At work, it might be the subtle nuances and details of mechanical ventilator waveform graphics that others simply do not see. Out in nature, a tiny, insignificant flower or insect on the forest floor, for example, will catch my attention and I will take a picture of it. I love that. Meanwhile, my wife will just wander through not seeing all the finer details. On the other hand, she can traverse those forest paths with a lot more dexterity while I am tripping over rocks, ruts, and branches because I am not focused on "the whole". Another way to put it, I have a tendency to focus upon "the tree" while others are focused on "the forest".

 

[Judge]

It is something that I suppose I should also mention that bothers me occasionally. Just the idea of stopping and discovering how narrow my focus is at any given time, particularly as "infinity" distances. Oh, I certainly have "binocular vision" in a peripheral sense (150 degrees).

Yet is the area in the center I feel is focused the most, is this an issue? For the many examinations I have had over a lifetime by an ophthalmologist, such a thing never came up.

How many degrees can a human see? - Geographic FAQ Hub: Answers to Your Global Questions

 

[Neonatal RRT]