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The pupil: a window on social automatic processing in autism spectrum disorder children
Author(s) -
AguillonHernandez Nadia,
Mofid Yassine,
Latinus Marianne,
Roché Laetitia,
Bufo Maria Rosa,
Lemaire Mathieu,
Malvy Joëlle,
Martineau Joëlle,
Wardak Claire,
BonnetBrilhault Frédérique
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/jcpp.13170
Subject(s) - psychology , autism spectrum disorder , pupillary response , arousal , autism , pupil , stimulus (psychology) , typically developing , facial expression , cognitive psychology , pupil diameter , developmental psychology , pupillometry , audiology , communication , neuroscience , medicine
Background Faces are crucial social stimuli, eliciting automatic processing associated with increased physiological arousal in observers. The level of arousal can be indexed by pupil diameter (the ‘Event‐Related Pupil Dilation’, ERPD). However, many parameters could influence the arousal evoked by a face and its social saliency (e.g. virtual vs. real, neutral vs. emotional, static vs. dynamic). A few studies have shown an atypical ERPD in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) patients using several kinds of faces but no study has focused on identifying which parameter of the stimulus is the most interfering with face processing in ASD. Methods In order to disentangle the influence of these parameters, we propose an original paradigm including stimuli along an ecological social saliency gradient: from static objects to virtual faces to dynamic emotional faces. This strategy was applied to 186 children (78 ASD and 108 typically developing (TD) children) in two pupillometric studies (22 ASD and 47 TD children in the study 1 and 56 ASD and 61 TD children in the study 2). Results Strikingly, the ERPD in ASD children is insensitive to any of the parameters tested: the ERPD was similar for objects, static faces or dynamic faces. On the opposite, the ERPD in TD children is sensitive to all the parameters tested: the humanoid, biological, dynamic and emotional quality of the stimuli. Moreover, ERPD had a good discriminative power between ASD and TD children: ASD had a larger ERPD than TD in response to virtual faces, while TD had a larger ERPD than ASD for dynamic faces. Conclusions This novel approach evidences an abnormal physiological adjustment to socially relevant stimuli in ASD.