Bringing methods into focus: How task demand and scene complexity drives attention allocation in autism

Background It has been proposed that atypical gaze behaviour is only observed when task demands are high or when scenes are sufficiently complex (Ames & Fletcher-Watson 2010). The current line of enquiry aims to explore this by manipulating complexity within scenes while recording gaze behaviour, while asking children to complete a task (task-driven attention) or look at the scenes only (spontaneous attention). It is predicted that groups with ASD will look less at faces across all complexity levels despite task demands.Method Using eye-tracking methodology, one group with Autism (Group 1; n = 20; mean age = 12 years 3 months) looked at scenes of varying complexity followed by a related memory task. Another group with Autism (Group 2; n=19; mean age = 11 years 4 months) looked at the same scenes but did not complete a task. Results Group 1 (task condition), showed typical gaze behaviour and looked longer at the faces (m = 899 ms) compared to objects (m = 423 ms) across the scene complexity levels F (1, 76) = 22.395, p