Galli Jessica, Vezzoli Marika, Loi Erika, Micheletti Serena, Molinaro Anna, Tagliavento Lucia, Calza Stefano, Sokolov Alexander N, Pavlova Marina A, Fazzi Elisa
Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
Unit of Child Neurology and Psychiatry, ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 28;15(1):14915. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-98461-7.
Face tuning is vital for adaptive and effective social cognition and interaction. This capability is impaired in a wide range of mental conditions including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Yet the origins of this deficit are largely unknown. Here, an eye-tracking methodology had been implemented in adolescents with high-functioning ASD and in typically developing (TD) matched controls while administering a face-pareidolia task. The spatial distributions of eye fixation in five regions of interest [face, eyes, mouth, CFA (complementary face area, a face area beyond eyes and mouth) and non-face area (a screen area outside a face)] were recorded during spontaneous recognition of a set of Arcimboldo-like Face-n-Food images presented in a predetermined order from the least to most resembling a face. Individuals with ASD gave significantly fewer face responses and looked more often at the mouth, CFA, and non-face areas. By contrast, TD controls mostly fixated the face and eyes areas. The atypical visual scanning strategies could, at least partly, account for the lower face tuning in ASD, supporting the eye avoidance hypothesis, according to which ASD individuals concentrate less on the eyes because the eyes represent a source of emotional information that may make them feel uncomfortable.
面部调谐对于适应性和有效的社会认知与互动至关重要。这种能力在包括自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）在内的多种精神状况中受损。然而，这种缺陷的根源在很大程度上尚不清楚。在此，在患有高功能ASD的青少年和发育正常（TD）的匹配对照组中实施了一种眼动追踪方法，同时进行一项面部空想性视错觉任务。在以从最不像脸到最像脸的预定顺序呈现一组阿尔钦博托式的“脸与食物”图像的自发识别过程中，记录了在五个感兴趣区域[面部、眼睛、嘴巴、CFA（互补面部区域，眼睛和嘴巴之外的面部区域）和非面部区域（面部之外的屏幕区域）]的注视空间分布。患有ASD的个体给出的面部反应明显较少，并且更频繁地看向嘴巴、CFA和非面部区域。相比之下，TD对照组大多注视面部和眼睛区域。这种非典型的视觉扫描策略至少可以部分解释ASD中较低的面部调谐，支持了眼神回避假说，根据该假说，ASD个体较少关注眼睛，因为眼睛代表了可能使他们感到不舒服的情感信息来源。
