Hart's Lab of Autism Research

We study how face perception develops across childhood and how autistic individuals process faces in distinct and meaningful ways. 

Research in our lab examines how face processing develops across childhood and how this trajectory differs in autism. Drawing on a series of studies by Hartston et al., we have shown that face perception in autism is not simply delayed, but reflects qualitatively different perceptual mechanisms. Using psychophysical paradigms, this work demonstrates that in typical development, perceptual narrowing and increasing specialization for faces continue throughout childhood. In contrast, autistic individuals appear to rely more heavily on local or recent perceptual input, with reduced integration into a robust prototypical face representation. Importantly, these findings suggest that differences in social perception may emerge from early perceptual processes, highlighting the need to understand autism not only at the level of social cognition but at the foundational level of perceptual development itself.  This research is in collaboration with Prof BatSheva Hadad (Special Education, University of Haifa), Prof Tzvi Ganel (Psychology Dept., Ben Gurion University of Beer Sheva), Prof Galia Avidan (Psychology Dept., Ben Gurion University of Beer Sheva), Dr. Erez Freud (York University, Canada), and Dr. Tal Lulav-Bash.