Gaze abnormalities are well documented in infants at elevated risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, variations in experimental design and stimuli across studies have led to mixed results. The current meta-analysis aimed to identify which type of eye tracking task and stimulus are most effective at differentiating high-risk infants (siblings of children with ASD) who later meet diagnosis criteria from low-risk infants without familial autism. We synthesized 35 studies that used eye tracking to investigate gaze behavior in infants at high genetic risk for autism before 2 years of age. We found that stimulus features, regions of interest (ROIs) and study quality moderated effect sizes across studies. Overall, dynamic stimuli and socially-relevant regions in the social stimuli (i.e. the target and activity of characters' shared focus) reliably detected high-risk infants who later develop ASD. Attention disengagement task and stimuli depicting interactions between human and nonhuman characters could identify high-risk infants who later develop ASD and those who have autism-related symptoms but do not meet the diagnostic criteria as well. These findings provide sensitive and reliable early markers of ASD, which is helpful to develop objective and quantitative early autism screening and intervention tools.

中文翻译：

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评估眼动追踪任务和刺激在检测后来诊断为自闭症的高危婴儿中的有效性：一项荟萃分析


在患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 的风险较高的婴儿中，凝视异常现象已有充分记录。然而，不同研究的实验设计和刺激因素的差异导致了不同的结果。当前的荟萃分析旨在确定哪种类型的眼动追踪任务和刺激最能有效地区分后来符合诊断标准的高危婴儿（自闭症谱系障碍儿童的兄弟姐妹）和无家族自闭症的低危婴儿。我们综合了 35 项研究，这些研究使用眼动追踪来调查 2 岁之前自闭症高遗传风险婴儿的注视行为。我们发现刺激特征、感兴趣区域 (ROI) 和研究质量调节了各项研究的效应大小。总体而言，动态刺激和社交刺激中的社交相关区域（即角色共同关注的目标和活动）可靠地检测到后来发展为自闭症谱系障碍的高风险婴儿。注意力脱离任务和描述人类和非人类角色之间相互作用的刺激可以识别后来发展为自闭症谱系障碍的高危婴儿，以及那些有自闭症相关症状但不符合诊断标准的婴儿。这些发现为自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）提供了敏感且可靠的早期标志物，有助于开发客观、定量的早期自闭症筛查和干预工具。