Department of Psychological Sciences, School of Science, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX, UK.
Psychology Department, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EC1V 0HB, UK.
Sci Rep. 2020 Aug 6;10(1):13185. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-69898-9.
Cerebral lateralisation of function is common characteristic across vertebrate species and is positively associated with fitness of the organism, in humans we hypothesise that it is associated with cognitive fitness. This investigation evaluated the early development of lateralised gaze behaviour for face stimuli in infants at high and low risk for autism from the British Autism Sibling Infant Study (BASIS). The BASIS cohort includes a low risk group and three high-risk groups who at age 3 were developing (i) typically, (ii) atypically or (iii) had received a diagnosis for ASD. Using eye-tracking data derived from a face pop-out task at 6 and 14 months of age, all non-ASD groups showed a bias for stimuli on the left at both timepoints. At 6 months the ASD group demonstrated a preference for stimuli on the right and were slower than their neurotypical counterparts to look at faces on the left. However, by 14 months these differences disappear. Longitudinal associations between lateral looking behaviour at 6 months and language and motor ability at 14 months were also found. Results suggest that infants who go on to be diagnosed with autism exhibit early differences in gaze behaviour that may be associated with subsequent cognitive outcomes.
功能的大脑偏侧化是脊椎动物物种的共同特征，与生物体的适应性呈正相关，我们假设在人类中，它与认知适应性有关。本研究评估了来自英国自闭症兄弟姐妹婴儿研究（BASIS）的高风险和低风险自闭症婴儿早期对面部刺激的侧化注视行为的发展。BASIS 队列包括一个低风险组和三个高风险组，这些高风险组在 3 岁时分别表现为（i）典型发育、（ii）非典型发育或（iii）被诊断为自闭症谱系障碍。使用从 6 个月和 14 个月大的面孔突出任务中得出的眼动追踪数据，所有非自闭症组在两个时间点都表现出对左侧刺激的偏向。在 6 个月时，自闭症组表现出对右侧刺激的偏好，并且比他们的神经典型对照组更慢地看左侧的面孔。然而，到 14 个月时，这些差异消失了。还发现了 6 个月时的侧视行为与 14 个月时的语言和运动能力之间的纵向关联。结果表明，被诊断为自闭症的婴儿表现出早期注视行为的差异，这可能与随后的认知结果有关。
