Quantifying the Impact of Social Cues and Focused‐Interest Objects on Joint Attention in Autistic Children via Eye‐Tracking

Joint attention is a core social-communication process that is affected in autistic children and may be key for early identification and targeted intervention. In this eye-tracking study, we examine how social cues and focused-interest objects modulate visual attention during joint attention tasks in autistic children and typically developing (TD) peers. Sixty-six children (33 autistic: M = 51.88 months, SD = 13.38; 33 TD: M = 53.54 months, SD = 8.64) completed a visual preference task in which a model used gaze and pointing gestures directed toward or away from objects related or unrelated to focused interests. We analyzed static measures of attention allocation, including total fixation duration on the model and the object, and a dynamic measure of gaze transitions between them as an index of attentional coordination across the triadic elements involved in joint attention. Results indicated that autistic children showed reduced fixation duration on the model and made fewer gaze transitions than TD children. Across groups, focused-interest objects reduced attention to the model, reflecting increased competition between social and object-based information. Importantly, sensitivity to cued objects differed between groups: TD showed greater total fixation duration on cued objects than autistic children, whereas no group differences were observed for uncued objects. For both groups, gaze transitions were more frequent with focused-interest objects regardless of cueing, whereas for unrelated objects, transitions increased only when cued by the model. Together, these findings highlight the dynamic nature of joint attention and supjport the value of combining static and dynamic eye-tracking measures to capture autism-related differences in social attention.