Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by serious disturbances in social interaction and communication, and restricted, repetitive behaviours. Abnormalities in face and gaze perception in children with autism are common clinical observations. The precise nature and underlying causes of these abnormalities are currently unclear. The present series of studies investigated face and gaze processing in high-functioning, school-aged children with autism.

Study I showed that another person's gaze direction automatically shifted the observer’s visual attention, both in children with autism and typically developing children. Both groups of children were also able to overtly discriminate the direction of gaze from brief presented face stimuli. Thus, the orientation of attention according to another person’s gaze direction and the discrimination of gaze direction seem to be preserved domains of social cognition in autism. It is possible, however, that children with autism use atypical cognitive and neural processing strategies to achieve seemingly similar behavioural outcomes. Study II demonstrated that skin conductance responses to straight gaze were stronger than responses to averted gaze in children with autism, whereas the responses of typically developing children did not differentiate between these gaze conditions. The increased psychophysiological arousal to straight gaze might have been experienced as uncomfortable by the children with autism, a finding which could be associated with the frequently observed tendency of individuals with autism to avoid eye contact. In Studies III and IV, the neural mechanisms underlying face and gaze processing were measured using magnetoencephalography in typically developing children and adults (Study III) and children with autism (Study IV). The findings of Study III suggested that the neural mechanisms underlying face processing are only partially developed in typically developing 8- to 11-year-old children. In Study IV, the electromagnetic activity elicited by the presentation of face stimuli was somewhat similar in children with autism and typically developing children. Gaze sensitive electromagnetic activity, particularly in response to straight gaze, most clearly differentiated these two groups of children.

It is speculated that the demonstrated gaze processing abnormalities might contribute to the lack of social motivation towards faces in autism. This, in turn, could lead to reduced exposure to faces during the development of children with autism and, consequently, to more general face processing difficulties.