What's New in Autism Research from Pubmed

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Itier RJ, Batty M Neural bases of eye and gaze processing: the core of social cognition.Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2009 Jun;33(6):843-63. Epub 2009 Feb 24.

Eyes and gaze are very important stimuli for human social interactions. Recent studies suggest that impairments in recognizing face identity, facial emotions or in inferring attention and intentions of others could be linked to difficulties in extracting the relevant information from the eye region including gaze direction. ......We suggest impairments in processing eyes and gaze may represent a core deficiency in several other brain pathologies and may be central to abnormal social cognition.


Allen MLBrief report: decoding representations: how children with autism understand drawingsJ Autism Dev Disord. 2009 Mar;39(3):539-43. Epub 2008 Sep 23.

Young typically developing children can reason about abstract depictions if they know the intention of the artist. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who are notably impaired in social, 'intention monitoring' domains, may have great difficulty in decoding vague representations. ..... Results are discussed in terms of intention and understanding of visual representation in autism.

Riby DM, Hancock PJ.Do faces capture the attention of individuals with Williams syndrome or autism? Evidence from tracking eye movements. J Autism Dev Disord. 2009 Mar;39(3):421-31. Epub 2008 Sep 12.

D.M.Riby@newcastle.ac.uk

The neuro-developmental disorders of Williams syndrome (WS) and autism can reveal key components of social cognition. Eye-tracking techniques were applied in two tasks exploring attention to pictures containing faces. ...... The findings are interpreted in terms of wider issues regarding socio-cognition and attention mechanisms.

Faja S, Webb SJ, Merkle K, Aylward E, Dawson G. Brief report: face configuration accuracy and processing speed among adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders.J Autism Dev Disord. 2009 Mar;39(3):532-8. Epub 2008 Aug 27.

The present study investigates the accuracy and speed of face processing employed by high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). ..... Results suggest adults with ASD were less accurate, but responded as quickly as controls for both tasks. ....