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Meanings in motion and faces: Developmental associations between the processing of intention from geometrical animations and gaze detection accuracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2006

RUTH CAMPBELL ,
KATE LAWRENCE ,
WILLIAM MANDY ,
CHEYTNA MITRA ,
LALITHA JEYAKUMA  and
DAVID SKUSE
RUTH CAMPBELL
Affiliation:
University College London
KATE LAWRENCE
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London
WILLIAM MANDY
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London
CHEYTNA MITRA
Affiliation:
University College London
LALITHA JEYAKUMA
Affiliation:
University College London
DAVID SKUSE
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London
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Abstract

Aspects of face processing, on the one hand, and theory of mind (ToM) tasks, on the other hand, show specific impairment in autism. We aimed to discover whether a correlation between tasks tapping these abilities was evident in typically developing children at two developmental stages. One hundred fifty-four normal children (6–8 years and 16–18 years) and 13 high-IQ autistic children (11–17 years) were tested on a range of face-processing and IQ tasks, and a ToM test based on the attribution of intentional movement to abstract shapes in a cartoon. By midchildhood, the ability accurately and spontaneously to infer the locus of attention of a face with direct or averted gaze was specifically associated with the ability to describe geometrical animations using mental state terms. Other face-processing and animation descriptions failed to show the association. Autistic adolescents were impaired at both gaze processing and ToM descriptions, using these tests. Mentalizing and gaze perception accuracy are associated in typically developing children and adolescents. The findings are congruent with the possibility that common neural circuitry underlies, at least in part, processing implicated in these tasks. They are also congruent with the possibility that autism may lie at one end of a developmental continuum with respect to these skills, and to the factor(s) underpinning them.The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Alliance for Autism Research in funding this work.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 99 - 118
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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