Considering victims’ minds in the evaluation of harmful agents’ moral standing

acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Cultural modulation of face and gaze scanning in young children

Previous research has demonstrated that the way human adults look at others’ faces is modulated by their cultural background, but very little is known about how such a culture-specific pattern of face gaze develops. The current study investigated the role of cultural background on the development of face scanning in young children between the ages of 1 and 7 years, and its modulation by the eye gaze direction of the face. British and Japanese participants’ eye movements were recorded while they observed faces moving their eyes towards or away from the participants. British children fixated more on the mouth whereas Japanese children fixated more on the eyes, replicating the results with adult participants. No cultural differences were observed in the differential responses to direct and averted gaze. The results suggest that different patterns of face scanning exist between different cultures from the first years of life, but differential scanning of direct and averted gaze associated with different cultural norms develop later in life

Atypical modulation of face-elicited saccades in autism spectrum disorder in a double-step saccade paradigm

Atypical development of face processing is a major characteristic in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which could be due to atypical interactions between subcortical and cortical face processing. The current study investigated the saccade planning towards faces in ASD. Seventeen children with ASD and 17 typically developing (TD) children observed a pair of upright or inverted face configurations flashed sequentially in two different spatial positions. The reactive saccades of participants were recorded by eye-tracking. The results did not provide evidence of overall impairment of subcortical route in ASD, However, the upright, but not the inverted, face configuration modulated the frequency of vector sum saccades (an index of subcortical control) in TD, but not in ASD. The current results suggest that children with ASD do not have overall impairment of the subcortical route, but the subcortical route may not be specialized to face processing

Atypical disengagement from faces and its modulation by the control of eye fixation in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

By using the gap overlap task, we investigated disengagement from faces and objects in children (9–17 years old) with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its neurophysiological correlates. In typically developing (TD) children, faces elicited larger gap effect, an index of attentional engagement, and larger saccade-related event-related potentials (ERPs), compared to objects. In children with ASD, by contrast, neither gap effect nor ERPs differ between faces and objects. Follow-up experiments demonstrated that instructed fixation on the eyes induces larger gap effect for faces in children with ASD, whereas instructed fixation on the mouth can disrupt larger gap effect in TD children. These results suggest a critical role of eye fixation on attentional engagement to faces in both groups

Relative visit duration on each AOI during the entire period of stimulus presentation, for each cultural background and gender of the participants.

<p>Note. * p < .05 (corrected); error bar: standard error.</p

Relative visit duration on the AOIs considered (front eye, back eye and mouth) for each 1-second bin of stimulus presentation, for each cultural background and sex of the participants.

<p>Note. (a) front eye, (b) back eye and (c) mouth. * p < .05 (corrected); error bar: standard error.</p

Sample of the gaze direction of the stimuli.

<p>All the actors initially showed (a) forward gaze and closed mouth. After one second, the actor shifted her gaze (b) toward the observer or (c) away from him/her. After another one second (i.e., 2 seconds from the onset of the stimulus), the face smiled (d and e). After that, the face remained still for another three seconds. The orientation of the face was right in half of the stimuli and the left in the other half.</p

Relative visit duration on each AOI during the entire period of stimulus presentation, for each cultural background.

<p>Note. * p < .05 (corrected); error bar: standard error.</p

Relative visit duration between young and older children on the AOIs in (a) front eye, (b) back eye and (c) mouth during the entire period of stimulus presentation, for each cultural background and gender of the participants.

<p>Note. * p < .05 (corrected); error bar: standard error.</p

Evaluative rating difference scores.

<p>The mean difference scores of direct and averted gaze for anger (A), sadness (B), pleasantness (C), dominance (D), and approachability rating scores (E) in the FI (white dots) and JP groups (grey dots). The following abbreviations are used: FI, Finnish; JP, Japanese.</p