Characterizing a novel mechanism for social perception of other people’s attention and its role in autism

To attribute mental content to other people, constructing a “theory of mind”, our brains need a model of the other’s attentional state.

Most of us effortlessly and automatically ‘read’ others’ attention, but people with autism have a striking selective impairment in this ability, and the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. A traditional view is that people track attention by tracking others’ gaze.

However, I recently showed that the brain constructs a much richer model: our brains generate subtle, false motion signals streaming from other people to the objects of their attention.

People show no awareness of this motion, even though it has a significant effect on motion-processing brain areas and behavioral measures, and on social cognitive decisions about the attention of others.

Here, I will study (1) at what developmental stage this motion-based attention model emerges, (2) what functional roles implicated brain areas play, (3) how the model is affected in autism, and (4) whether it can be trained up to boost social-cognition ability in autism by using real-time fMRI neurofeedback where subjects learn to engage their visual motion system when viewing others attending to objects.

Using cutting-edge behavioral, neurostimulation and neuroimaging methods, this project will reveal fundamental principles of how the human brain models other people’s attention. The results may also have groundbreaking clinical implications for understanding and treating autism.