22 Dec 2005 - 02:39

making eye contact

Somehow I missed this result when it came out.

Anyone who knows someone with even a mild autism spectrum disorder knows how difficult it can be to get the person to look at you. Their gaze just slides off your chin. It's hard to believe that it's just that they aren't interested in your face, as many theorists have suggested; their avoidance of eye contact is so marked that it's hard to feel there isn't some kind of aversion there. This article in Scientific American (from March 2005) seems to explain why.

Children suffering from autism pay very little attention to faces, even those of people close to them. Indeed, this characteristic can become apparent as early as the age of one, and is often used as a developmental sign of the disease. The results of a new study provide additional insight into why autistic children avoid eye contact: they perceive faces as an uncomfortable threat, even if they are familiar.

Children suffering from autism pay very little attention to faces, even those of people close to them. Indeed, this characteristic can become apparent as early as the age of one, and is often used as a developmental sign of the disease. The results of a new study provide additional insight into why autistic children avoid eye contact: they perceive faces as an uncomfortable threat, even if they are familiar.

Kim M. Dalton of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her colleagues studied 27 autistic teenagers who looked at pictures of faces (see image) while a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine scanned their brains. The researchers also tracked the subjects' eye movements as they studied the images. "This is the very first published study that assesses how individuals with autism look at faces while simultaneously monitoring which of their brain areas are active," Dalton says. When the image included a direct gaze from a nonthreatening face, brain activity in the amygdala--a brain region associated with negative feelings--was much higher for autistic children than it was in members of the control group. "Imagine walking through the world and interpreting every face that looks at you as a threat, even the face of your own mother," remarks study co-author Richard Davidson, also at UW-Madison.

The results also indicate that a brain area associated with face perception, known as the fusiform region, is fundamentally normal in autistic children; it does exhibit decreased activity, however. Davidson notes that this could result because the over-aroused amygdala makes an autistic child want to look away from faces. In addition, he comments that it was surprising that "when subjects with autism averted their gaze away from the eye region of a face, they showed reduced activity in the amygdala, suggesting that the gaze aversion is serving a functional purpose." The findings are published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

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No one can experience the eye contact avoidance of autistic kids and not perceive that looking into people's eyes hurts. In some way.

A friend of ours in LA, whose husband was a research ophthamalogist, said he had a theory that eye contact was actually physically painful.

The first time I was introduced to Temple in person—after we'd been working together for quite awhile—she looked as autistic as it's possible to look. She had her face kind of pulled back, and her eyes totally averted. In the middle of an introduction.

As soon as Eric (Hollander) said my name, Temple's face lit up and she looked straight at me.

That certainly goes along with the amygdala idea.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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I think the fusiform business is wrong, though, only because some years ago Ami Klin gave a lecture in which he said that the fusiform gyrus (I think that's the area) isn't actually a 'face recognition' area, although people constantly speak of it as if it is.

In fact, the fusiform gyrus lights up when it sees something—anything, including objects—it recognizes and knows well.

The fact that the fusiform gyrus isn't lighting up for faces implies that autistic people also don't really 'know' faces, or recognize faces.

Autistic kids can have trouble recognizing their parents. People always interpret this as the autistic child 'not caring' or 'not loving' his parents, but they're probably seeing strangers.

We saw the opposite of this with Jimmy, who was very affectionate. When he was little, Jimmy sometimes mistook other people for us. He'd go up to them and hang all over them, wanting to be picked up.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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btw, I don't know what the story is with the fusiform gyrus. I could have misinterpreted (or misremembered) what Klin had to say; or he could have been wrong.

Just throwing it out there.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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Davidson's an interesting guy.

His work on right brain/left brain lateralization of mood is fascinating.

(Basically, the left brain is happy-face; right brain is sad-and-anxious face.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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The new TRENDS has an article on emotion lateralization.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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My one son has difficulty with looking at people, as well, unless he is very familiar with them. I've always thought there was something going on with excess tension/stimulation of some part of the brain, so this makes sense to me, even though he has never been diagnosed with autism of any sort.

He's also the same kid who can look down a street and scan it when things are still, but when cars are moving he wants to look away or down. He has stepped out in front of several cars over the years, and only was allowed to cross the street by himself last year (7th grade.)

Of course, this is the same kid who can walk in the house, scan it once, see some little tiny wrapper behind a piece of furniture, and say, "Did someone go to the store today?"

-- SusanS - 21 Dec 2005

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same kid who can walk in the house, scan it once, see some little tiny wrapper behind a piece of furniture, and say, "Did someone go to the store, today?

Temple and I wrote about that; in fact, it's the thesis of our book.

We speculate that this has to do with autistic people having access to a 'lower level' of processing.

All of us can 'see' those little details, but we can't see them consciously.

Temple and I think autistic people probably can.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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Andrew has astonishingly good eye contact.

This was the thing that kept us from knowing he was autistic as early as we could have.

He's a very strange kid.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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We could probably use another round of tests on all of this, but I just dread it.

-- SusanS - 21 Dec 2005

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I know that many kids are completely freaked by clowns, and suspect that it's because they look like people, but not really. Do autistic kids respond in a consistent way to clowns? How about pictures of faces or caricatures?

(I hope this isn't too intrusive. If it is, please ignore the questions and accept my preemptive apology.)

-- DougSundseth - 21 Dec 2005

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Do autistic kids respond in a consistent way to clowns? How about pictures of faces or caricatures?

You know, that's a very good question.

I remember Jimmy was terrified of Santa Claus—and this was the first year of his life he was able to deal with Halloween. (He's 18.)

He was also horrified by birds (at UCLA pigeons would sit right next to your feet asking for food.)

Of course, he was right about the birds.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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Ben told me the other day that he thinks clowns are kind of creepy.

Of course, everyone thinks clowns are kind of creepy.

-- CarolynJohnston - 21 Dec 2005

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I've always thought there was something going on with excess tension/stimulation of some part of the brain, so this makes sense to me, even though he has never been diagnosed with autism of any sort.

My two older stepsons, both neurotypical, both had eye contact avoidance into their teenaged years. So it's not only autism spectrum people who have it.

-- CarolynJohnston - 21 Dec 2005

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I remember Jimmy was terrified of Santa Claus—and this was the first year of his life he was able to deal with Halloween.

Lord, our problems with Ben and Halloween were legendary. He'd do two houses and then lose it. There was something extremely stressful about Halloween, who knows what.

-- CarolynJohnston - 21 Dec 2005

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Of course, everyone thinks clowns are kind of creepy.

You don't say.

-- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005

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Just be grateful I don't give his website address, although it is hysterical.

-- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005

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good lord

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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is that Curt Angle?

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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Did you see this one??

Autistic Brain Not Damaged Where Researchers Expected

These people found the cerebellum to be OK, which is a HUGE shock. I've spent all 14 years since Jimmy's diagnosis living and breathing Cerebellar Dysfunction....

I wonder what Margaret Bauman has to say about this.

I need to get back in the loop.....

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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Kurt Angle

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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or, I mean, Is that Kurt Angle's head?

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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Nothing wrong with Kurt Angle's eye contact.

I did see that article on cerebellar damage. Let me know what Margaret Baumann thinks. I don't know what to think.

-- CarolynJohnston - 21 Dec 2005

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Islands of Genius

(Just so I know where the link is)

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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Catherine, this article comparing Nadia's art to Lascaux cave art is surprisingly good!

-- CarolynJohnston - 21 Dec 2005

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is it good?

I've been meaning to read that for YEARS.

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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I thought so. His analysis of Nadia's savant ability is pretty much what I always figured -- it's our symbolic thinking that prevents untrained people from drawing things as they appear. He really focuses in, though, on the question of whether the cave artists had modern brains -- his claim is, not necessarily.

-- CarolynJohnston - 21 Dec 2005

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it's our symbolic thinking that prevents untrained people from drawing things as they appear

boy, I should have read that before writing ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION

that's pretty much what we said.....

also what Snyder says

-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005

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"it's our symbolic thinking that prevents untrained people from drawing things as they appear"

That's also the central thesis of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". You need to distract the symbol manipulation part of the brain to be able to draw things that look like things.

-- DougSundseth - 21 Dec 2005

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"Drawing on the right side of the brain" -- that's how I learned to draw.

-- CarolynJohnston - 22 Dec 2005

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FANTASTIC book.

I took the 5-day workshop. (Only lasted 3 days, but I learned everything I needed to know.)

It's the one they call 'boot camp.'

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Dec 2005

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I mean.....I learned everything I needed at that moment, from that workshop.

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Dec 2005