Terje Falck-Ytter

We have recently discovered that a hallmark of infants’ social attention – how much they look at other people’s eyes when they observe faces – can be explained by how high up they look at any type of object. This surprising finding calls for a potential reevaluation of a large literature of the role of individual differences in eye contact in typical development, and how it may differ in autism. In this VR proposal, we will first map the developmental origins of these domain-general visual biases (Aim1). We will test if the correlation between social and non-social viewing biases is already present in very young infants (3 months), which would suggest a basic physiological explanation (i.e., anatomy of retina or early visual cortex) for generalized looking preferences.  Secondly, we will assess whether accounting for domain-general visual biases can help us understand the association between reduced eye preference and autism (Aim2). Lastly, we will use live eye tracking to test if domain-general visual biases can also explain how individual children look at faces during social interaction with other people (Aim3). In addition to the direct theoretical implications for the development of basic vision and face perception in infancy, accounting for domain-general visual biases can help us understand social attention in clinical conditions like autism and improve classification accuracy of gaze-based diagnostic methods.

Recent electroencephalography (EEG) data from our group indicates that infants who later develop Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) symptoms have altered functional brain activation in the visual cortex during global motion processing. This specific phenotype alone explained ~25-35% of the variance in ASD symptoms in toddlerhood. Yet, it is not known which underlying neural mechanisms account for differences in early visual processing in autism. Here, we address this question based on EEG and/or (functional) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analyses of infants (n = 924

of which 230 are at elevated likelihood of ASD) and preschoolers (n = 500, of which 200 have ASD). Specifically, we will test (1) if our previous finding can be explained by altered functional connectivity (linked to the visual cortex or more widely), and (2) the more specific hypothesis that atypicalities in global motion perception reflect elevated influence of a subcortical visual pathway. Further (3), due to the large sample size and the extensive clinical data available on the participants, we can evaluate the potential clinical utility of assessing visual perception in young children (e.g., for differential diagnosis and stratification of autistic children into more homogeneous subgroups). Because this RJ project is based on analyses of recently completed multi-site datasets collected in Europe, it will contribute to Sweden taking an important role in leveraging international efforts.

Recent electroencephalography (EEG) data from our group indicates that infants who later develop Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) symptoms have altered functional brain activation in the visual cortex during global motion processing. This specific phenotype alone explained ~25-35% of the variance in ASD symptoms in toddlerhood. Yet, it is not known which underlying neural mechanisms account for differences in early visual processing in autism. Here, we address this question based on EEG and/or (functional) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analyses of infants (n = 924

of which 230 are at elevated likelihood of ASD) and preschoolers (n = 500, of which 200 have ASD). Specifically, we will test (1) if our previous finding can be explained by altered functional connectivity (linked to the visual cortex or more widely), and (2) the more specific hypothesis that atypicalities in global motion perception reflect elevated influence of a subcortical visual pathway. Further (3), due to the large sample size and the extensive clinical data available on the participants, we can evaluate the potential clinical utility of assessing visual perception in young children (e.g., for differential diagnosis and stratification of autistic children into more homogeneous subgroups). Because this RJ project is based on analyses of recently completed multi-site datasets collected in Europe, it will contribute to Sweden taking an important role in leveraging international efforts.