Assistant Professor
Director, Griffin Laboratory
Developmental, Cognitive, and Behavioral Neuroscience
Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University

Health 1, Room 440
jasongriffin@uh.edu
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Dr. Griffin will be reviewing graduate student applications for the 2025-2026 academic year in the Developmental, Cognitive, & Behavioral Neuroscience Program. Application deadline is Dec 15, 2024. Please click here for details.

Biographical Summary

Dr. Griffin is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Developmental, Cognitive, and Behavioral Neuroscience program (DCBN). He completed his doctoral training at Pennsylvania State University and his postdoctoral training at Yale University.

As Director of the Griffin Laboratory, his research program centers on understanding the neural and behavioral mechanisms that influence social perception (e.g., face processing) in both autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents. As a cognitive neuroscientist and autism researcher, Dr. Griffin strives to merge neuroscience, clinical, and quantitative methodologies to amplify the translational impact of his work. To achieve this, he employs a diverse range of tools, including electroencephalography (EEG), eye-tracking, intervention science, and advanced statistical techniques, aiming to deepen our understanding of social perception in autism.

Dr. Griffin's research has garnered funding from various intramural and extramural sources, including the Hilibrand Foundation, the Autism Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). He has also been recognized with numerous awards for his contributions, including the Alumni Association Dissertation Award, which earned him a Distinguished Scholar Medal. He also serves on the Early Career Committee for APA Division 3: Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science.

Research Interests

• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Face Processing
• Social Cognition
• Electrophysiology
• Quantitative Methods
• Evidence Synthesis

Selected Publications

Griffin, J.W. (2024). Eyes are windows to the brain: Capturing eye movements to better understand face processing in autism. Science, 386, 632-632. 

Griffin, J.W., Naples, A., Bernier, R., Chawarska, K., Dawson, G., Dziura, J., Faja, S., Jeste, S., Kleinhans, N., Sugar, C., Webb, S., Shic, F., & McPartland, J.C., for the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials. (2024). Spatiotemporal eye movement dynamics reveal altered face prioritization in early visual processing among autistic children. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

Griffin, J.W., Webb, S.J., Keehn, B., Dawson, G., & McPartland, J.C. (2024). Autistic individuals do not alter visual processing strategy during encoding versus recognition of faces: A hidden Markov modeling approach. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Scherf, K.S., Griffin, J.W., Geier, C.G., & Smyth, J.M. (2024). Social visual attention as a treatment outcome: evaluating the social games for autistic adolescents (SAGA) intervention. Scientific Reports, 14, 619.

Griffin, J.W., Azu, M.A., Cramer-Benjamin, S., Franke, C., Herman, N., Iqbal, R., Keifer, C.M., Rosenthal, L., & McPartland, J.C. (2023). Investigating the face inversion effect in autism across behavioral and neural measures of face processing: A Bayesian multilevel meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry, 80(10), 1026–1036.

Cuijpers, P., Griffin, J.W., & Furukawa, T.A. (2021). The lack of statistical power of subgroup analyses in meta-analyses: A cautionary note. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 30, e78, 1-3.

Griffin, J.W., Geier, C.F., Smyth, J.M., & Scherf, K.S. (2021). Improving sensitivity to eye gaze cues in autistic adolescents using serious game technology: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology Advances, 1(3), e12041.

Griffin, J.W. (2021). Calculating statistical power for meta-analysis using metapower. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 17(1), 24-39.

Griffin, J.W., Bauer, R., & Scherf, K.S. (2021). A quantitative meta-analysis of face recognition deficits in autism: 40 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 147(3), 268-292.

Griffin, J.W., & Scherf, K.S. (2020). Does decreased visual attention to faces underlie difficulties interpreting eye gaze cues in autism? Molecular Autism, 11(1), 60.