Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by difficulties in social communication and interaction, as well as restricted and repetitive behaviour and thoughts. Deficits in face processing have been argued to play a fundamental role in the social interaction challenges observed in autistic people, however, variability in face recognition ability in autism has yet to be explained. Experience-based accounts like the Social Motivation Hypothesis posit that reduced or atypical social attention may deprive individuals with autism of the necessary experience for the typical protracted development of face processes. Lab-based eye tracking studies and retrospective home video studies support the notion that autistic people have reduced and atypical attention to faces, but there is currently little empirical evidence of insufficient exposure to faces as part of their daily visual input. A recent study (Oruc et al., 2018) characterized the exposure statistics to faces for neurotypical adults using a head-mounted camera worn by participants for one day. We have utilized the same methodology to examine the visual experience of adults with autism (n = 17). Our results reveal notable quantitative and qualitative differences between the “face diets” of those with autism and non-autistic controls (n = 43). Individuals with autism spend significantly less time exposed to faces (8.45 minutes of every walking hour) than their non-autistic counterparts (12.21 minutes per hour; p = 0.044). In addition, faces were seen from a farther distance (p <<0.001) and more likely to appear in profile view (p = 0.01) for those with ASD. These exposure statistics differ from those characteristic of social interactions. Taken together, we provide the first evidence in an ecologically valid setting that visual experience with faces is reduced and atypical in ASD. This may be an important limiting factor in face recognition competence in ASD.