Autism

The Caltech Autism Spectrum Disorders Research Program studies the cognitive and emotional aspects of adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The research contributes to our understanding of brain function in ASD by using techniques such as neuroimaging (magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI), eye-tracking, and psychophysiology.

These studies should help us to better understand the difficulties in social behavior that are often seen in people with ASD. Because our research participants are adults, our research is relatively unique in providing information about social function in adults.

Some of the questions pertaining to this study:

How do we recognize emotion from facial expressions?
How do we move our eyes when talking with someone?
What brain areas are connected when we pay attention to visual and auditory social stimuli?

Eye-tracking Studies

Our lab conducts studies which make comparisons across clinical populations, and across techniques.

Shown here are eye-tracking data to faces comparing autism to an individual with bilateral amygdala lesions: the hotter colors indicate that people fixate these regions the most.

Left: healthy controls. Middle: patient with amydala lesions.
Right: people with high-functioning autism.