Dear Dr. Jeroen J. A. van Boxtel,

Thank you very much for the opportunity to submit a revision of our manuscript, “Gaze Processing Across Psychosis Proneness, Social Anxiety, and Autism Traits: Examining the Role of Sensory Quality and Context Congruity.” We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their time, thoughtful comments, and guidance to improve the original submission. We have carefully revised the manuscript to address the noted concerns and incorporate the suggested revisions. Importantly, the de-identified dataset is now publicly available on OSF: https://osf.io/chqw2. We believe the manuscript has substantially improved. Below, we detail our responses to each of the reviewer’s comments (which are in bold). We sometimes repeat our responses for similar comments raised by multiple reviewers for ease of review. Thank you very much for your valuable time and effort in improving this manuscript.

Sincerely,

Pan Gu and co-authors

Editor’s Notes:

Reviewer 1: Comments to authors:

Data for the study is not available. My understanding is that this is a requirement for PlosOne. I'm not in a position to comment on the robustness of the statistical approach as I'm not familiar with ESEM, but I do have some questions regarding whether the sample size is sufficient for the individual-differences analyses conducted here. Further comments on the Introduction and the Discussion are uploaded as an attachment.

Thank you for raising this data availability concern. In response to this and the editor’s request, we have shared the dataset on OSF: https://osf.io/chqw2.

Regarding the sample size, we acknowledge the limitations of a relatively small sample size, and future studies are needed to replicate the current study in a bigger sample. We agree that larger samples are more powered for individual-difference analyses using SEM. However, we note that similar sample sizes have been used successfully in previous studies. For example, Schmidt, Mueller, and Roder (2011) conducted SEM to examine how social cognition mediates the relationship between neurocognitive performance and functional status among 148 schizophrenia patients.

We have also revised and expanded the Limitation section to more thoroughly address this concern, “A few limitations are worth noting. First, our non-clinical sample reported a restricted range of psychopathology, particularly for psychosis proneness, which may have limited observable relations with gaze perception. The relatively modest sample size may also have affected the stability of parameter estimates and reduced statistical power. Future studies should recruit large transdiagnostic samples of patients with pronounced social deficits and those with subclinical levels of traits, as proposed by Tso et al. [88]. This could further validate these relations and potentially reveal both transdiagnostic and disorder-specific treatment targets for gaze processing deficits and associated social dysfunction.”

Despite the limitation of a small sample size, this paper is the first to use an individual difference approach to systematically compare the shared and distinct mechanisms in gaze perception, and their associations with psychosis proneness, social anxiety, and autism traits in a community sample.

Citations: Schmidt, S. J., Mueller, D. R., & Roder, V. (2011). Social Cognition as a Mediator Variable Between Neurocognition and Functional Outcome in Schizophrenia: Empirical Review and New Results by Structural Equation Modeling. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 37(suppl_2), S41–S54. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbr079

I think the Introduction and Discussion need major revisions. Introduction pg3 paragraph 2 – what constitutes prior information in the context of gaze perception not clear.

We thank the reviewer for these valuable suggestions. We have carefully revised the manuscript to address the noted concerns regarding the introduction and discussion.

For Introduction paragraph 2 (Page 3), we thank the reviewer for raising this concern regarding the clarity of prior information in the context of gaze perception. Here, examples for higher-level cognition processes include self-referential processing, emotional expression, and attentional control. These top-down processes are particularly critical when co-present directional signals conflict with one another, such as when head orientation is incongruent with eye direction, or when pointing gestures are incongruent with eye direction (Langton, 2000). In such cases, observers draw on prior knowledge and expectations to resolve the ambiguous sources of information, form a holistic judgement of eye gaze, and most often to think others were “looking at me” (Mareschal et al., 2013). We have revised the paragraph to reflect these changes. Specifically, on page 3, we now state “Gaze perception involves both early visual processing (e.g., decoding the iris/pupil position relative to the sclera) and higher-level cognition (e.g., self-referential processing). When perceiving a gaze, visual signals—such as the contrast between the iris and the sclera—are first processed through the sensory system. These sensory inputs are then integrated with stored knowledge and self-referential expectations to form a holistic representation of whether or not others are looking at me [22,23].”

Citation: Langton, S. R. H. (2000). The mutual influence of gaze and head orientation in the analysis of social attention direction. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 53(3), 825–845. https://doi.org/10.1080/713755908

Mareschal, I., Calder, A. J., Dadds, M. R., & Clifford, C. W. G. (2013). Gaze categorization under uncertainty: Psychophysics and modeling. Journal of Vision, 13(5), 18. https://doi.org/10.1167/13.5.18

Pg4 lines 73-93 – Methods of the studies reviewed could be summarised. In its current form, not clear how precision was operationalised (e.g., line 77).

Thank you for these helpful suggestions. We have revised the second paragraph of the Introduction to include more details about the methods, now stating “Altered gaze perception has not only been reported in psychosis, ASD, and social anxiety disorder [12,18,34], but also in individuals with subclinical traits related to these disorders. For instance, using the Cone of Direct Gaze (CoDG)—the range of gaze angles that one reports as receiving eye contact [25]—individuals with higher levels of social anxiety or psychosis proneness have been found to endorse a wider CoDG, suggesting they perceived direct eye contact from a wider range of gaze directions [17,21,35]. Individuals who endorsed more autism traits have similarly shown altered gaze perception, including decreased sensitivity to direct gaze [19] and a greater reliance on featural information (e.g., the size of the eyes)—rather than configural information (e.g., distance between facial features)—to detect self-directed gaze [36]. These findings suggest that aberrant gaze perception is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon that appears only in clinical populations; rather, it can also be present in the general population and the degree of disruption likely scales with levels of psychopathology. Furthermore, aberrant gaze perception observed across various psychopathology dimensions may be differentially subject to alterations in early visual and higher-level cognitive processing.” Changes are italicized for emphasis.

Worthwhile to include a description of the mental conditions (social anxiety, autism, psychosis) and subclinical traits in the introduction, and their link to eye gaze perception and how any differences in gaze perception influence social cognition and interactions. This would provide a clear rationale for the study and its importance.

We thank the reviewer for this important suggestion. We have restructured and expanded the introduction to reflect these changes. We wish to clarify that in our study, gaze perception serves as a key component of social cognition, as it constitutes a fundamental process involved in receiving and processing social cues (Yager & Ehmann, 2006). Therefore, any disruption in gaze perception is a specific component of broader social cognitive deficits and contributes to poorer social functioning. We have revised the introduction to make this conceptual link more explicit. We hope this revision addresses the reviewer's concern. Additions are italicized for emphasis.

The introduction now states, “Eye gaze is an important source of social information [1]. Perceiving and interpreting gaze direction helps us infer others’ intentions, identify the targets of their attention, and predict future communication [2]. As such, the ability to precisely and efficiently identify others’ gaze direction is critical for navigating day-to-day interactions and represents a core component of broader social cognition [3,4]. This ability, however, is altered across psychopathologies characterized by social dysfunction, including schizophrenia [5–7], autism spectrum disorder (ASD; [8–11]), social anxiety disorder [12–14], and in populations with subclinical traits of these disorders [15–17], implying that it may impact social cognition across multiple psychopathology dimensions and contribute to poorer social functioning. Therefore, disentangling the underlying components of gaze perception has the potential to elucidate the mechanisms contributing to social dysfunction. In this study, we combined experimental manipulations of stimuli in a gaze perception task and psychopathology trait measures to investigate mechanisms of altered gaze processing across psychopathology dimensions.”

Citations: Yager, J. A., & Ehmann, T. S. (2006). Untangling Social Function and Social Cognition: A Review of Concepts and Measurement. Psychiatry, 69(1), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1521/psyc.2006.69.1.47

Definitions needed for key terminology i.e. self-referential processing, when observed, why, and why it matters + what higher-level cognition involves, why threshold is primarily about higher-order cognitive processing (pg 5 line 99).

We thank the reviewer for this helpful comment. The self-referential processing refers to the ability to judge if a gaze is self-directed or not (“looking at me”). As we mentioned earlier, the self-referential process is particularly critical when the gaze signal is ambiguous, such as when co-present directional signals conflict with one another. This process is of particular interest, as it is impaired in patients with schizophrenia (Chan et al., Tso et al., 2012) and predicts social functioning (Lasagna et al., 2024).

The threshold likely depends on both higher-order cognitive processing and perceptual visual processing. However, we argue that the threshold parameter in the present paradigm primarily reflects higher-order cognitive processing. First, the threshold represents the point at which a participant judges gaze as being directed toward themselves, spanning a range of angles with weaker signal strengths that introduce ambiguity. Therefore, our paradigm requires participants to resolve ambiguous gaze signals, where higher-order processing is more likely to play a determining role. Second, participants were explicitly instructed to respond to “Looking at me or not,” a framing that directly invokes self-referential processing. This judgment is conscious and deliberate, requiring participants to integrate perceptual information with self-referential evaluation under conditions of ambiguity.

We have revised the introduction accordingly. The updated paragraph now reads, “Threshold reflects the degree of deviation from direct gaze that is interpreted as self-referential half of the time. Given that participants must explicitly judge whether gaze is directed at themselves across a continuum of gaze deviations, rather than simply detect eye orientation, this parameter primarily implicates higher-order cognitive processing [10,39].”

Citations: Tso, I. F., Mui, M. L., Taylor, S. F., & Deldin, P. J. (2012). Eye-contact perception in schizophrenia: Relationship with symptoms and socioemotional functioning. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 121(3), 616–627. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026596

Chan, S. K. W., Liu, T., Wong, A. O. Y., Wong, G. H. Y., Hsiao, J., Hui, C. L. M., Chang, W. C., Lee, E. H. M., & Chen, E. Y. H. (2021). Self-referential gaze perception of patients with schizophrenia and its relationship with symptomatology and cognitive functions. Schizophrenia Research, 228, 288–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2020.12.034

Stein, T., Senju, A., Peelen, M. V., & Sterzer, P. (2011). Eye contact facilitates awareness of faces during interocular suppression. Cognition, 119(2), 307–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.01.008

Lasagna, C. A., Tso, I. F., Blain, S. D., & Pleskac, T. J. (2024). Cognitive mechanisms of aberrant self-referential social perception in psychosis and bipolar disorder: Insights from computational modeling. Schizophrenia Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbae147

Lines 84-84 – why expect these associations? Background on these conditions (i.e., what the literature shows re: when to expect low-level vs high-level effects) would clarify for the reader why you predict these distinct relations. Not clear from the introduction why these hypotheses are generated. Introduction needs revision to provide rationale for these. For example, there’s high comorbidity between autism and social anxiety, so why expect high social anxiety to be associated with greater self-referential bias but not high autistic traits?

Thank you for this comment on theoretical rationale. We have substantially revised the introduction to provide a more detailed background for each hypothesis. Below is a copy of our revised hypothesis section (page 5) for ease of review.

“We hypothesized that psychopathology dimensions would show differential levels of disruptions in these two processes, such that: 1) social anxiety would be associated with greater self-referential bias, in line with the wider CoDG reported in individuals with higher social anxiety [16,17,35,40], indicating a tendency to judge a broader range of gaze directions as self-directed; 2) autism would be associated with lower perceptual precision, as individuals with autism are less precise in detecting subtle changes in gaze angle [41]; and 3) psychosis proneness would be associated with lower perceptual precision and higher self-referential bias, consistent with prior findings linking psychosis proneness to wider CoDG and reduced precision [21,37].”

Gaze perception task pg 8 – If there’s a reason for having a fixed order of condition presentation across participants, it could be stated here. Otherwise, possible confounding effects of not having the order randomised.

Thank you for asking for our rationale. A fixed order design was used to allow participants to progress through the gaze perception task with increasing difficulty (no noise, low noise, then high noise). This provided participants with sufficient trials to become acquainted with the task before encountering progressively ambiguous stimuli, with the aim of maintaining engagement and reducing frustrations that may occur if participants encountered the most challenging conditions first. Additionally, since the main focus of this work is individual differences, we implemented a fixed order to minimize potential variability in performance outcomes that could arise from differential order effects across participants, which would confound the analyses.

However, we acknowledge that a fixed order design limits our ability to make strong inferences about the influence of our experimental manipulations at the group level. We have added this caveat to the Limitation section: “Second, present findings suggest that adding visual noise with a fixed order design to gaze stimuli reduces perceptual precision and increases self-referential bias, yet conclusions about the impact on specific cognitive processes remain limited. Decreased perceptual precision could reflect disrupted early visual processing or changes in social cognition-specific processes. Likewise, enhanced self-referential bias could be caused by stronger reliance on prior beliefs or by strengthened perceptual biases [10]. Future work needs to carefully rule out the practice or f

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