Unravelling Neurodivergent Gaze Behaviour Through Visual Attention Causal Graphs

Can the very fabric of how we visually explore the world hold the key to distinguishing individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)? While eye tracking has long promised quantifiable insights into neurodevelopmental conditions, the causal underpinnings of gaze behaviour remain largely uncharted territory. Moving beyond traditional descriptive metrics of gaze, this study employs cutting-edge causal discovery methods to reconstruct the directed networks that govern the flow of attention across natural scenes. Given the well-documented atypical patterns of visual attention in ASD, particularly regarding socially relevant cues, our central hypothesis is that individuals with ASD exhibit distinct causal signatures in their gaze patterns, significantly different from those of typically developing controls. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the diagnostic potential of causal modeling of eye movements in uncovering the cognitive phenotypes of ASD and offers a novel window into the neurocognitive alterations characteristic of the disorder.