Unconscious and Conscious Gaze-Triggered Attentional Orienting:Distinguishing Innate and Acquired Components of Social Attention in Children and Adults with Autistic Traits and Autism Spectrum Disorders  

作　　者：Fang Yang Junbin Tian Peijun Yuan Chunyan Liu Xinyuan Zhang Li Yang Yi Jiang 

机构地区：[1]State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science,Institute of Psychology,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,P.R.China [2]Department of Psychology and College of Life Science,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,P.R.China [3]Peking University Sixth Hospital,Peking University Institute of Mental Health,National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital),NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University),Beijing,P.R.China [4]School of Education and Psychology,University of Jinan,Jinan,P.R.China [5]School of New Media,Financial & Economic News,Guangdong University of Finance,Guangzhou,P.R.China

出　　处：《Research》2025年第1期634-646,共13页研究(英文)

基　　金：supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China(2021ZD0203800 and 2021ZD0204200);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31830037);the Key Research and Development Program of Guangdong(2023B0303010004);the Interdisciplinary Innovation Team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(JCTD-2021-06);Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

摘　　要：Typically developing(TD)individuals can readily orient attention according to others'eye-gaze direction,an ability known as social attention,which involves both innate and acquired components.To distinguish between these two components,we used a critical flicker fusion technique to render gaze cues invisible to participants,thereby largely reducing influences from consciously acquired strategies.Results revealed that both visible and invisible gaze cues could trigger attentional orienting in TD adults(aged 20 to 30 years)and children(aged 6 to 12 years).Intriguingly,only the ability to involuntarily respond to invisible gaze cues was negatively correlated with autistic traits among all TD participants.This ability was substantially impaired in adults with autism spectrum disorder(ASD)and in children with high autistic traits.No such association or reduction was observed with visible gaze cues.These findings provide compelling evidence for the functional demarcation of conscious and unconscious gaze-triggered attentional orienting that emerges early in life and develops into adulthood,shedding new light on the differentiation of the innate and acquired aspects of social attention.Moreover,they contribute to a comprehensive understanding of social endophenotypes of ASD.

关 键 词：unconscious gaze critical flicker fusion technique social attention orient attention conscious gaze attentional orienting gaze cues social attentionwhich 

分 类 号：B844[哲学宗教—发展与教育心理学]