Abstract
The primary objectives of this study were to evaluate the structure and age-related stability of social attention in English and Arabic-speaking youth and to compare social attention between children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), other developmental disabilities (DD), and typically-developing controls. Eye-tracking data were collected from US (N=270) and Qatari (N=242) youth ages 1-17, including children evaluated for possible ASD. Participants viewed 44 stimuli from seven social paradigms. Fixation was computed for areas of interest within each stimulus. Latent variable models examined the structure of social attention. Generalized estimating equation models examined the effect of age, sex, culture, and diagnostic group on social attention. The best-fitting model included a general social attention factor and six specific factors. Cultural differences in social attention were minimal and social attention was stable across age (r=0.03), but females showed significantly greater social attention than males (d=0.28). Social attention was weaker in DD (d=-0.17) and lowest in ASD (d=-0.38) relative to controls. Differences were of sufficient magnitude across areas-of-interest to reliably differentiate DD from controls (AUC=0.80) and ASD-only from all other cases (AUC=0.76). A social attention dimension that represents an early-life preference for socially salient information was identified. This preference was cross-culturally consistent and stable across development but stronger in females and weaker in DD, especially ASD. Given rapid and easy-to-collect remote eye tracking administration, social attention measurement may be useful for developmental monitoring. Acquisition of population norms, analogous to height/weight/head circumference, might enhance early screening and tracking of neurodevelopment. LAY SUMMARY: This research found that social attention is a single dimension of behavior that represents a strong preference for social stimuli, is consistent across cultures, stable across age, and stronger in females. Children with developmental disabilities had lower levels of social attention than neurotypical children and children with autism spectrum disorder had the lowest levels of social attention.
Highlights
Social processes are basic functional dimensions that span the full range of behavior from neurotypical to disordered and are featured prominently in the National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) (Morris et al, 2015; Morris & Cuthbert, 2012)
It will be important to identify and differentiate the structure of social attention and understand how it relates to RDoC social processes and psychopathology
More than 100 studies have examined the role of social attention in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), finding reductions in gaze to high social salience information and increases in gaze to low social salience information (ChitaTegmark, 2016; Frazier et al, 2017)
Summary
One promising domain that has been suggested to play a key role across normative and atypical development is social attention (Frank et al, 2012; Salley & Colombo, 2016). More than 100 studies have examined the role of social attention in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), finding reductions in gaze to high social salience (hereafter social) information and increases in gaze to low social salience (hereafter non-social) information (ChitaTegmark, 2016; Frazier et al, 2017). There is debate as to whether gaze during live interactions produce different patterns of findings (Noris et al, 2012) or whether screen-based versus live interactions evaluate different aspects of social attention (Grossman et al, 2019)
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