Journal
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 127, Issue -, Pages 18-24Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.04.006
Keywords
Eye-contact; EEG; N170; Face processing
Funding
- Patterson Trust [13-002909]
- Autism Speaks Translational Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Waterloo Foundation [1167-1684]
- [NIMHR01 MH100173]
- [NIMH-K23 MH086785]
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Sensitivity to eye-contact is a foundation upon which social cognition is built. However, there are no known neural markers characterizing response to reciprocal gaze. Using co-registered EEG and eye-tracking, we measured brain activity while participants viewed faces that responded to their looking patterns. Contingent upon participant gaze, onscreen faces opened their eyes or mouths; in this way we measured brain response to reciprocal eye-contact. We identified two ERP components that were largest in response to reciprocal eye-contact: the N170 and the P300. The magnitude of the components' differences between reciprocal eye-contact and mouth movement predicted self-reported social function. Individuals with greater brain response to reciprocal eye-contact reported more normative scores on measures of autistic traits. These results present the first neural markers of eye-contact, revealing that reciprocal eye-contact is identified in less than 500 ms. Furthermore, individual differences in brain response to eye-contact predict meaningful variability in self-reports of social performance.
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