Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
186,125 studies31 sourcesUpdated 53 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0PLOS One

Gaze processing across psychosis proneness, social anxiety, and autism traits: Examining the role of sensory quality and context congruity

  • Pan Gu1
  • Scott D. Blain2
  • Carly A. Lasagna3
  • Takakuni Suzuki4
  • Cynthia Z. Burton5
  • Katharine N. Thakkar6
  • Jerillyn S. Kent
  • Ivy F. Tso
6 affiliations
  1. 1Department of Psychology, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, United States of America
  2. 2Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America
  3. 3Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America
  4. 4Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America
  5. 5Department of Psychology, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States of America
  6. 6Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America
Open at sourcePDFDOICite

Abstract

The ability to accurately perceive gaze direction is an essential social skill but is impaired across psychopathologies exhibiting social dysfunction (e.g., schizophrenia, social anxiety disorder, autism spectrum disorder). Disrupted sensory processing and self-referential processing may both lead to aberrant gaze perception, but their respective contributions in different psychopathologies are unclear. A general population sample of 106 participants completed an online psychophysical gaze perception task and a battery of psychopathology trait questionnaires. Participants viewed face images with 9 gaze angles, superimposed with 3 levels (no, low, high) of sensory noise and in 2 (forward, deviated) head orientations, and indicated perceived self-directed gaze (yes/no) for each face. Psychophysical properties of the gaze perception curve (width, threshold) were used to index perceptual imprecision and self-referential bias, respectively. Decreased precision was associated with higher autism traits but lower social anxiety, supporting differential contributions of sensory processing among psychopathology dimensions. Subjects showed decreased precision and increased self-referential bias, when viewing stimuli with added visual noise or incongruent gaze-head directions, resembling performance previously observed in patients with schizophrenia. Additionally, higher levels of social anxiety statistically predicted a greater decrease in precision when sensory noise was added. Findings are discussed in relation to the experimental psychopathology literature and in the context of self-referential gaze perception as an adaptive default in ambiguous contexts. Overall, this work enhances our basic scientific understanding of the cognitive components that contribute to gaze perception, while advancing our knowledge of how these components are disrupted as a function of subclinical psychopathology.

Related

  1. Interoceptive Processing in Boredom Proneness: Sensing Without Making Sense
    Chantal Trudel, James Danckert
    PsyArXivPreprintCC BY 4.0Full textNeuroscienceOSF
  2. Maternal Anxiety During Pregnancy and Offspring Information Processing Across Development: A Theory-Guided Predictive-Processing Reappraisal of Two Longitudinal Cohorts
    Bea R. H. Van den Bergh, Martin G. Frasch
    arXivPreprintCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Full textBioinformatics & computational biologyNeurosciencearXiv
  3. Neural and cognitive correlates of adolescent anxiety: Widespread brain network alterations, increased control costs, and visuospatial processing deficits.
    Madhumitha Manjunath, Catherine Stamoulis
    Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)Peer-reviewedCC BYFull textNeuroscienceEurope PMCPMC
  4. Identifying Neurophysiological Subtypes in Clinical High Risk for Psychosis Using Functional Connectome Profiling
    Guoliang Hou, Jiayu Feng, Yulin Wang +1
    Schizophrenia BulletinPeer-reviewedPublisher termsFull textNeurosciencePMC
  5. Decision Analysis: Routine Toxoplasma gondii Serology in First-Episode Psychosis
    Marcus Webb
    Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)PreprintPublic domain9 citedMicrobiologyOpenAlex

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{gu2026gaze,
  title = {{Gaze processing across psychosis proneness, social anxiety, and autism traits: Examining the role of sensory quality and context congruity}},
  author = {Pan Gu and Scott D. Blain and Carly A. Lasagna and Takakuni Suzuki and Cynthia Z. Burton and Katharine N. Thakkar and Jerillyn S. Kent and Ivy F. Tso},
  journal = {PLOS One},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0352116},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0352116},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Gaze processing across psychosis proneness, social anxiety, and autism traits: Examining the role of sensory quality and context congruity
AU  - Pan Gu
AU  - Scott D. Blain
AU  - Carly A. Lasagna
AU  - Takakuni Suzuki
AU  - Cynthia Z. Burton
AU  - Katharine N. Thakkar
AU  - Jerillyn S. Kent
AU  - Ivy F. Tso
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/03
JO  - PLOS One
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pone.0352116
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0352116
AB  - The ability to accurately perceive gaze direction is an essential social skill but is impaired across psychopathologies exhibiting social dysfunction (e.g., schizophrenia, social anxiety disorder, autism spectrum disorder). Disrupted sensory processing and self-referential processing may both lead to aberrant gaze perception, but their respective contributions in different psychopathologies are unclear. A general population sample of 106 participants completed an online psychophysical gaze perception task and a battery of psychopathology trait questionnaires. Participants viewed face images with 9 gaze angles, superimposed with 3 levels (no, low, high) of sensory noise and in 2 (forward, deviated) head orientations, and indicated perceived self-directed gaze (yes/no) for each face. Psychophysical properties of the gaze perception curve (width, threshold) were used to index perceptual imprecision and self-referential bias, respectively. Decreased precision was associated with higher autism traits but lower social anxiety, supporting differential contributions of sensory processing among psychopathology dimensions. Subjects showed decreased precision and increased self-referential bias, when viewing stimuli with added visual noise or incongruent gaze-head directions, resembling performance previously observed in patients with schizophrenia. Additionally, higher levels of social anxiety statistically predicted a greater decrease in precision when sensory noise was added. Findings are discussed in relation to the experimental psychopathology literature and in the context of self-referential gaze perception as an adaptive default in ambiguous contexts. Overall, this work enhances our basic scientific understanding of the cognitive components that contribute to gaze perception, while advancing our knowledge of how these components are disrupted as a function of subclinical psychopathology.
SN  - 1932-6203
ER  -