Faces are among the most potent stimuli for the human brain. From birth, we orient toward eyes and expressions, interpreting emotion and intention almost before thought arises. Yet, for many people with neurodevelopmental differences, this automatic pull toward the social world follows a different logic. A new open-access study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience by researchers from LMU Munich reveals that attention to faces diverges sharply between adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - and even more intriguingly, between those who have both.
The study, led by Irene Sophia Plank and Christine M. Falter-Wagner, used a cognitive test known as the dot-probe paradigm to measure face attention bias (FAB) - the tendency for faces to automatically capture attention more strongly than non-social objects. Using reaction times and eye-tracking data, the team compared four groups: adults with ASD, adults with ADHD, adults with both ASD and ADHD, and neurotypical adults without psychiatric diagnoses.
The human pull toward faces
In everyday perception, faces act as "social magnets." They are processed faster, remembered better, and can trigger emotion and empathy in milliseconds. This preference reflects a deep neural architecture involving dopamine, oxytocin, and the salience network - brain regions that assign priority to what matters most for survival and connection. For most people, this translates into quicker attention shifts toward faces, a reliable signature known as face attention bias. But when the mechanisms that regulate attention or social salience are altered - as they often are in ASD and ADHD - this seemingly simple bias reveals a map of how differently the brain organizes the social world.
A closer look at the experiment
Participants viewed pairs of images - one depicting a face and the other a neutral object. After a brief 200-millisecond exposure, a small square appeared where either the face or the object had been. Participants had to respond as quickly as possible, pressing a key to indicate the location of the target. The researchers then compared reaction times between face-cued and object-cued targets, as well as detailed eye movements such as saccades (rapid gaze shifts) and fixations. Faster responses to face-cued targets indicated a stronger FAB, reflecting the automatic salience of faces.
What they found
Neurotypical adults displayed the expected pattern: faster reactions to face-cued targets, confirming the universal tendency to prioritize social information. Adults with autism, however, did not show this bias. While their overall reaction times were slower, their responses to faces and objects were about the same, suggesting a neutral or diminished response to facial cues. Adults with ADHD showed the opposite pattern - a heightened bias toward faces. Their reactions were slower overall but disproportionately faster when the cue involved a face. The difference was not accompanied by more eye movements toward faces, meaning the effect was covert - a mental shift of attention rather than an overt gaze. Those with both ASD and ADHD showed no increased FAB, resembling the autistic group more closely. This suggests that autistic traits may "override" ADHD's face-oriented bias, balancing the two systems toward neutrality.
What it means for attention and social behavior
These findings paint a striking picture: rather than sharing a single social attention mechanism, ASD and ADHD express opposite attentional signatures. In ADHD, social salience appears exaggerated. The brain's dopamine system - which tags stimuli as important - may be overactive, causing faces to feel disproportionately magnetic. This could explain why people with ADHD sometimes become overstimulated or distracted by social cues, struggling to filter what's relevant. In contrast, ASD appears to dampen social salience. The typical neural "reward" of seeing a face may be weaker, leading to less automatic engagement and a need for deliberate effort in social interaction. The difference may hinge on the interaction between dopamine and oxytocin, the neurochemical pair that regulates attention and bonding. Dopamine amplifies what feels meaningful; oxytocin modulates social significance. When these systems fall out of sync, the result may be either hyper-attention to faces (as in ADHD) or hypo-attention (as in autism).
Beyond deficit models
Crucially, the study reframes both conditions away from simple notions of deficit. In ADHD, heightened sensitivity to social signals might not reflect poor control but excess salience - a brain attuned to connection, but unable to regulate input. In ASD, reduced automatic attention to faces does not mean lack of empathy; it may reflect a more stable perceptual threshold, one that resists involuntary social capture. The coexistence of both, as seen in comorbid ADHD+ASD, might even out these extremes, yielding a form of equilibrium where the system neither overreacts nor disengages completely.
A new map of neurodivergent attention
The authors argue that understanding such attentional architectures - how different brains assign priority to social information - can guide more precise interventions. Rather than treating attention as a single function, therapies could target salience modulation: calming overactive social attraction in ADHD, or amplifying under-responsive circuits in ASD. Their findings also highlight the need for a new lens in neuroscience - one that sees attention not merely as focus or distraction but as a dynamic field of valuation, constantly balancing relevance, effort, and emotional meaning.
Toward individualized cognitive signatures
By mapping how faces pull - or fail to pull - attention, this research offers more than a diagnostic clue. It points to the deep individuality of cognitive experience. The same smile may feel like an irresistible gravitational pull to one mind, and a neutral pattern of light and shadow to another. Understanding these invisible biases could one day allow clinicians and educators to read attentional signatures as clearly as heartbeats - using them to build environments that align with how each brain naturally navigates the social world.
