Brief Report: Cognitive Control of Social and Nonsocial Visual Attention in Autism.

Prosaccade and antisaccade errors in the context of social and nonsocial stimuli were investigated in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 19) a matched control sample (n = 19), and a small sample of youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (n = 9). Groups did not differ in error rates in the prosaccade condition for any stimulus category. In the antisaccade condition, the ASD group demonstrated more errors than the control group for nonsocial stimuli related to circumscribed interests, but not for other nonsocial stimuli or for social stimuli. Additionally, antisaccade error rates were predictive of core ASD symptom severity. Results indicate that the cognitive control of visual attention in ASD is impaired specifically in the context of nonsocial stimuli related to circumscribed interests.