Visuomotor tracking strategies in children: associations with neurodevelopmental symptoms.

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) often display motor problems that may impact their daily lives. Studying specific motor characteristics related to spatiotemporal control may inform us about the mechanisms underlying their challenges. Fifty-eight children with varying neurodevelopmental symptoms load (median age: 5.6 years, range: 2.7-12.5 years) performed an interactive tablet-based tracking task. By investigating digit touch errors relative to the target's movement direction, we found that a load of neurodevelopmental symptoms was associated with reduced performance in the tracking of abrupt alternating directions (zigzag) and overshooting the target. In contrast, reduced performance in children without neurodevelopmental symptoms was associated with lagging behind the target. Neurodevelopmental symptom load was also associated with reduced flexibility in correcting for lateral deviations in smooth tracking (spiral). Our findings suggest that neurodevelopmental symptoms are associated with difficulties in motor regulation related to inhibitory control and reduced flexibility, impacting motor control in NDDs.

A novel tablet-based motor coordination test performs on par with the Beery VMI subtest and offers superior temporal metrics: findings from children with pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome.

Neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders are often associated with coordination problems. Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS) constitutes a specific example of acute and complex symptomatology that includes difficulties with motor control. The present proof-of-concept study aimed at testing a new, bespoke tablet-based motor coordination test named SpaceSwipe, providing fine-grained measures that could be used to follow-up on symptoms evolution in PANS. This test enables computationally precise and objective metrics of motor coordination, taking into account both directional and spatial features continuously. We used SpaceSwipe to assess motor coordination in a group of children with PANS (n = 12, assessed on in total of 40 occasions) and compared it against the motor coordination subtest from the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (Beery VMI) 6th edition, traditionally used to follow-up symptomatology. Using a bivariate linear regression, we found that 33 s of the directional offset from tracking a moving target in SpaceSwipe could predict the Beery VMI motor coordination (VMI MC) raw scores (mean absolute error: 1.75 points). Positive correlations between the predicted scores and the VMI MC scores were found for initial testing (radj = 0.87) and for repeated testing (radj = 0.79). With its short administration time and its close prediction to Beery VMI scores, this proof-of-concept study demonstrates the potential for SpaceSwipe as a patient-friendly tool for precise, objective assessment of motor coordination in children with neurodevelopmental or neuropsychiatric disorders.

Pupillary Contagion in Autism.

Pupillary contagion is an involuntary change in the observer's pupil size in response to the pupil size of another person. This effect, presumed to be an important adaption for individuals living in groups, has been documented in both typical infants and adults. Here, for the first time, we report pupillary contagion in individuals with autism, a disorder of social communication. We found that, compared with a typical group ( n = 63), individuals with autism ( n = 54) exhibited comparable pupillary contagion when observing pictures of emotional faces, despite less spontaneous attention toward the eye region. Furthermore, the magnitude of the pupillary response in the autism group was negatively correlated with time spent fixating the eye region. The results suggest that even with less looking toward the eyes, individuals with autism respond to the affective and arousal levels transmitted from other individuals. These results are discussed in the context of an overarousal account of socioaffective-processing differences in autism.

The role of representational strength in verbal updating: evidence from 19- and 24-month-olds.

The current research investigated the role of object familiarity in children's ability to update the representation of an absent object via language. In Study 1, the degree of object familiarity was manipulated by the amount of time children were exposed to an object. The results showed that when 19- and 24-month-olds were minimally exposed to the object, only the 24-month-olds were able to incorporate newly heard information about it by selecting the new version of the object. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that the younger children's failure to update is due to their failure to activate an object's weak representation in working memory. When the object's weak representation was reactivated (by seeing a depiction of the object) prior to the language input, the younger children successfully updated their representation of the object. The findings are discussed in light of the graded representation account.

Influence of autistic traits and communication role on eye contact behavior during face-to-face interaction.

Eye contact is a central component in face-to-face interactions. It is important in structuring communicative exchanges and offers critical insights into others' interests and intentions. To better understand eye contact in face-to-face interactions, we applied a novel, non-intrusive deep-learning-based dual-camera system and investigated associations between eye contact and autistic traits as well as self-reported eye contact discomfort during a referential communication task, where participants and the experimenter had to guess, in turn, a word known by the other individual. Corroborating previous research, we found that participants' eye gaze and mutual eye contact were inversely related to autistic traits. In addition, our findings revealed different behaviors depending on the role in the dyad: listening and guessing were associated with increased eye contact compared with describing words. In the listening and guessing condition, only a subgroup who reported eye contact discomfort had a lower amount of eye gaze and eye contact. When describing words, higher autistic traits were associated with reduced eye gaze and eye contact. Our data indicate that eye contact is inversely associated with autistic traits when describing words, and that eye gaze is modulated by the communicative role in a conversation.

A novel end-to-end dual-camera system for eye gaze synchrony assessment in face-to-face interaction.

Quantification of face-to-face interaction can provide highly relevant information in cognitive and psychological science research. Current commercial glint-dependent solutions suffer from several disadvantages and limitations when applied in face-to-face interaction, including data loss, parallax errors, the inconvenience and distracting effect of wearables, and/or the need for several cameras to capture each person. Here we present a novel eye-tracking solution, consisting of a dual-camera system used in conjunction with an individually optimized deep learning approach that aims to overcome some of these limitations. Our data show that this system can accurately classify gaze location within different areas of the face of two interlocutors, and capture subtle differences in interpersonal gaze synchrony between two individuals during a (semi-)naturalistic face-to-face interaction.

Self-reported eye contact sensitivity and face processing in chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.

INTRODUCTION: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22qDS) has been associated with varying levels of social impairments, and with atypical visual scanning of faces. The present study explored whether self-reported sensitivity to eye contact might be related to these phenomena. METHOD: Individuals with confirmed 22qDS were interviewed about their experience and possible discomfort with eye contact. In cases where individuals expresesed discomfort, they were subsequently asked about coping mechanisms used to deal with this discomfort. In addition to self-reported eye contact discomfort, gaze to emotional faces was examined using eye tracking. RESULTS: In the subgroup of individuals who reported discomfort during eye contact, eye tracking results revealed a lower amount of gaze in the eyes of neutral faces, as well as the absence of the typical left visual field (LVF) bias, indicative of alterations in hemispheric lateralization. This subgroup also scored lower on a measure of everyday functioning. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that, by simply asking individuals with this social and communicative disorder about eye gaze discomfort, we may better understand the specific challenges that they experience. Moreover, information gained from such first-person reports together with eye-tracking measures further informs about the integrity of their face processing system, as well as about the nature and degree of impairment in this population.

Social feedback enhances learning in Williams syndrome.

Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic condition characterized by high social interest and approach motivation as well as intellectual disability and anxiety. Despite the fact that social stimuli are believed to have an increased intrinsic reward value in WS, it is not known whether this translates to learning and decision making. Genes homozygously deleted in WS are linked to sociability in the general population, making it a potential model condition for understanding the social brain. Probabilistic reinforcement learning was studied with either social or non-social rewards for correct choices. Social feedback improved learning in individuals with Williams syndrome but not in typically developing controls or individuals with other intellectual disabilities. Computational modeling indicated that these effects on social feedback were mediated by a shift towards higher weight given to rewards relative to punishments and increased choice consistency. We conclude that reward learning in WS is characterized by high volatility and a tendency to learn how to avoid punishment rather than how to gain rewards. Social feedback can partly normalize this pattern and promote adaptive reward learning.

No transfer of arousal from other's eyes in Williams syndrome.

Typically developing humans automatically synchronize their arousal levels, resulting in pupillary contagion, or spontaneous adaptation of pupil size to that of others. This phenomenon emerges in infancy and is believed to facilitate social interaction. Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic condition characterized by a hyper-social personality and social interaction challenges. Pupillary contagion was examined in individuals with WS (n = 44), age-parallel-matched typically developing children and adults (n = 65), and infants (n = 79). Bayesian statistics were used. As a group, people with WS did not show pupillary contagion (Bayes factors supporting the null: 25-50) whereas control groups did. This suggests a very early emerging atypical developmental trajectory. In WS, higher pupillary contagion was associated with lower autistic symptoms of social communication. Diminished synchronization of arousal may explain why individuals with WS have social challenges, whereas synchronization of arousal is not a necessary correlate of high social motivation.

Face Processing in School Children with Dyslexia: Neuropsychological and Eye-tracking Findings.

Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental difficulty affecting reading, but recent data in adults suggest that difficulties also extend to face processing. Here, we tested face processing in school children with and without dyslexia, using eye-tracking and neuropsychological tests. Children with dyslexia didn't differ significantly from controls in face gaze patterns, face memory, or face identification accuracy. However, they were slower and more heterogeneous, with larger within-group variance than controls. Increased gaze patterns toward the eyes were associated with better face memory in controls. We discuss the possible role of experiential factors in prior research linking dyslexia and face processing differences.

Left visual field bias during face perception aligns with individual differences in reading skills and is absent in dyslexia.

BACKGROUND: When looking at faces, we tend to attend more to the left visual field (corresponding to the right side of the person's face). This phenomenon is called the left visual field bias (LVF) and is presumed to reflect the brain's right-sided dominance for face processing. Whether alterations in hemispheric dominance are present in dyslexia, and are linked with individual differences in word reading development more generally, is still unclear, and no prior research has utilized gaze-based LVF bias to explore these topics. AIMS: The aim of the study was to examine whether the LVF bias differs in dyslexia and to examine the association with word-reading skills assessed dimensionally. SAMPLE: Forty-six 9-13 year-old children with dyslexia and community control children, matched on age and listening comprehension. METHODS: Participants were presented with a recorded face on a screen while their gaze patterns were collected with an eye tracker. Fixations to the left versus the right side of the face stimuli were compared. RESULTS: Results showed a clear LVF bias in community controls, while no such bias was seen in the dyslexic group. Moreover, the strength of the LVF bias was correlated with better word reading in the controls. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest a link between weakened hemispheric dominance for face processing in dyslexia and in poor word reading, at least to the extent that the LVF bias actually mirrors underlying physiology. We discuss the implications of these novel findings, highlighting the need for future research to determine the specificity and developmental sources of LVF bias alterations.

Facial speech processing in children with and without dyslexia.

What role does the presence of facial speech play for children with dyslexia? Current literature proposes two distinctive claims. One claim states that children with dyslexia make less use of visual information from the mouth during speech processing due to a deficit in recruitment of audiovisual areas. An opposing claim suggests that children with dyslexia are in fact reliant on such information in order to compensate for auditory/phonological impairments. The current paper aims at directly testing these contrasting hypotheses (here referred to as "mouth insensitivity" versus "mouth reliance") in school-age children with and without dyslexia, matched on age and listening comprehension. Using eye tracking, in Study 1, we examined how children look at the mouth across conditions varying in speech processing demands. The results did not indicate significant group differences in looking at the mouth. However, correlation analyses suggest potentially important distinctions within the dyslexia group: those children with dyslexia who are better readers attended more to the mouth while presented with a person's face in a phonologically demanding condition. In Study 2, we examined whether the presence of facial speech cues is functionally beneficial when a child is encoding written words. The results indicated lack of overall group differences on the task, although those with less severe reading problems in the dyslexia group were more accurate when reading words that were presented with articulatory facial speech cues. Collectively, our results suggest that children with dyslexia differ in their "mouth reliance" versus "mouth insensitivity," a profile that seems to be related to the severity of their reading problems.

Human infants detect other people's interactions based on complex patterns of kinematic information.

Do infants perceive other people's interactions by means of a mechanism that integrates biological motion information across the observed individuals? In support of this view, the present study demonstrates that infants (N = 28, Age  = 14 months) discriminate between point light displays representing disrupted and non-disrupted interactions between people, even though the two interaction types are identical at the level of individual point light agents. Moreover, a second experiment (sample 2: N = 28, Age  = 14 months) indicated that visual preference in this context is influenced by an audiovisual integration processes that takes into account the presence of an interaction between people. All these results were found exclusively for upright displays--when stimuli were shown upside-down (disrupting biological motion processing), performance was random. Collectively, these findings point to an important role for biological motion in social perception in human infants.