Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28647006›Full record

SynthesisJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry2017

A Meta-Analysis of Gaze Differences to Social and Nonsocial Information Between Individuals With and Without Autism.

Thomas W Frazier, Mark Strauss, Eric W Klingemier, Emily E Zetzer, Antonio Y Hardan, Charis Eng, Eric A Youngstrom

Registry-linked trialAbstract readMeta-AnalysisReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Synthesis in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05796310 (Mind the Gap), which is not on this map. Cited by 167 papers, 13 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
167citing papers in PubMed, 13 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT05796310 unknown statusnot on this mapstarted 2022, after this paper: background citation

Mind the Gap: a Bridge Between Research and Clinic for the Prevention and Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders

TypeobservationalSponsorIRCCS Centro Neurolesi Bonino PulejoRan2022 to 2025Enrolled28ConditionsAutism Spectrum DisorderArmsSalivary collection, eye-tracking recorder, neuropsychological assessment
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

167 citing papers in PubMed, 13 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  3. Eye Tracking as a Treatment Monitoring Tool for Autism: A Multilevel Meta-Analysis.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2025
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  8. Gaze and social functioning associations in autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2022
    Pooled it
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  11. Social-environmental moderators of neurodevelopmental outcomes in youth born preterm: A systematic review.Child neuropsychology : a journal on normal and abnormal development in childhood and adolescence · 2021
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107 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Thomas W FrazierCenter for Autism, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH. Electronic address: fraziet2@ccf.org.
Mark StraussUniversity of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
Eric W KlingemierCenter for Autism, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH.
Emily E ZetzerCenter for Autism, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH.
Antonio Y HardanStanford University, Stanford, CA.
Charis EngGenomic Medicine Institute, Cleveland Clinic.
Eric A YoungstromUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Funding

Toward better characterization and clinical trial readiness for targeting neuropsychiatric manifestations in PTEN pathogenic variantsU54NS092090 · NINDS · BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL · PI M. Pilar Trelles · 2014 to 2026
$20.1M
NINDS NIH HHS U54 NS092090
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveNumerous studies have identified abnormal gaze in individuals with autism. However, only some findings have been replicated, the magnitude of effects is unclear, and the pattern of gaze differences across stimuli remains poorly understood. To address these gaps, a comprehensive meta-analysis of autism eye-tracking studies was conducted.

methodPubMed and a manual search of 1,132 publications were used to identify studies comparing looking behavior to social and/or nonsocial stimuli between individuals with autism and controls. Sample characteristics, eye-tracking methods, stimulus features, and regions of interest (ROIs) were coded for each comparison within each study. Multivariate mixed-effects meta-regression analyses examined the impact of study methodology, stimulus features, and ROI on effect sizes derived from comparisons using gaze-fixation metrics.

resultsThe search yielded 122 independent studies with 1,155 comparisons. Estimated effect sizes tended to be small to medium but varied substantially across stimuli and ROIs. Overall, nonsocial ROIs yielded larger effect sizes than social ROIs; however, eye and whole-face regions from stimuli with human interaction produced the largest effects (Hedges g = 0.47 and 0.50, respectively). Studies with weaker study designs or reporting yielded larger effects, but key effects remained significant and medium in size, even for high-rigor designs.

conclusionIndividuals with autism show a reliable pattern of gaze abnormalities that suggests a basic problem with selecting socially relevant versus irrelevant information for attention and that persists across ages and worsens during perception of human interactions. Aggregation of gaze abnormalities across stimuli and ROIs could yield clinically useful risk assessment and quantitative, objective outcome measurements.

Indexed as

Social PerceptionAttentionAutism Spectrum DisorderEye MovementsHumansautism spectrum disordereye trackingmeta-analysismeta-regressionsocial information processing

Identifiers

PMID28647006
PMCPMC5578719

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.