Temporal progression of pupil dilation and gaze behavior to emotion expressions in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder.

ABSTRACT: Previous work has shown divergent pupil dilation (PD) and gaze behavior in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which may relate to the development of social difficulties in early life. Here, we investigated temporal dynamics of both phenotypes during naturalistic videos of a person displaying facial emotion expressions in 61 autistic and 61 non-autistic preschoolers. PD was segmented into three serial time components derived from a principal component analysis. Growth curve analysis was applied to analyze changes in looking time on eye and mouth regions over time. Groups did not differ in PD time components. Growth curve analysis revealed initially shorter looking times on the eyes and longer looking times on the mouth in autistic versus non-autistic preschoolers. However, a r

SUBMITTER: Polzer L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10991397 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature