The Effects of Social Presence on Gaze, Movement and Arousal in Autism: A Cooperative Virtual Reality Game-Based Approach

Fluid human social interaction demands a complex exchange of verbal and non-verbal signals. Effectively interpreting and responding to these signals requires timely visual attention to relevant stimuli and coordination of appropriate motor responses. Differences in social interaction are a key part of the criteria for autism, but such differences are also frequently found in conjunction with differences in gaze and gross motor behavior, as well as physiological arousal. This finding suggests these basic functions may contribute to atypical social interactions, especially in highly dynamic situations. Our study uses a virtual reality pattern completion video game with solo and cooperative conditions to measure gaze, motor, and physiological responses to social and non-social stimuli within the virtual environment. In a population of 11 autistic and 16 non-autistic young adults, we measured gaze behavior and pupil diameter as an index of physiological arousal and two different perception-action sequences that occur in the pattern completion task. Compared to non-autistic players, the autistic players had longer fixation duration times in cooperative condition during looks to the most socially dynamic region of the virtual environment. We also observed differences across group and condition in a perception action sequence that demanded visually localizing a block and placing it onto a specific location to complete the sequence. Pupil arousal responses were triggered on the same block placement event and revealed significantly larger arousal changes for autistic players in the cooperative condition. These findings demonstrate specific effects of social presence on fundamental behaviors that comprise social interaction and can be measured, and eventually manipulated, in virtual reality.