Gaze behavior when looking at paintings may predict autistic traits

From infancy, we spend considerable time absorbing social information from the external world. Social information processing, which starts with looking at facial expressions, affects behavior and cognition. Previous research has demonstrated that looking behaviors at social cues such as faces may differ in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by using eye-tracking studies with real photographs and movies. However, mixed results have been reported. In this study, we examined whether autistic traits in adults affected gaze behavior when participants viewed paintings. The eye-tracking results indicate that gaze patterns change over time during a 20-s free-viewing task. Although the fixations were not influenced during the first 10 s of the viewing, autistic tendencies affected gaze behavior after the overview of the painting was completed: the higher the autism-spectrum quotient scores, the shorter the fixation duration and the fewer the fixations on the facial areas of the paintings during the latter 10 s of viewing time. This result indicates that the atypical gaze behavior was more likely to be modulated by a generalized attentional process for endogenous orienting with reduced interest in social cues. Gaze patterns of viewing paintings may be used to predict autistic tendencies among people undiagnosed but suspected of having ASD.