Perceptions of Facial Expressions of Emotion in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Reading the “minds eye” Using Reverse Correlation K Ainsworth1, O Garrod1, R E Jack1, C Holcomb2, R Adolphs2, P Schyns1, D Simmons1 |
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1School of Psychology, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom |
| One of the “primary social deficits” of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) is understanding the emotions of others, yet current literature is inconclusive as to whether individuals with ASD perceive basic facial expressions of emotion differently from typically developed (TD) individuals [Simmons, et al. 2009, Vision Research, 49, 12705-2739] and, if so, which specific emotions are confused. To address this question, we combined the power of subjective perception with a psychophysical technique (reverse correlation) to model the mental representations of facial expressions in high functioning (HF) ASD and TD adult participants. Participants categorized random expressions constructed using a unique 4D Facial Action Coding System-based generative face grammar [Yu et al. 2012, Computers and Graphics, 36, 152-162] into six basic emotions: happy, surprise, fear, disgust, anger and sadness (or “other”). By applying cluster analysis to the resulting facial expression models we found that TD models formed six distinct clusters, in line with the literature. In contrast, ASD models showed overlap between emotion categories, with fear and anger reflecting the lowest clarity in mental representation. These data demonstrate that even HF ASD groups have difficulties recognizing basic facial expressions of emotion. |
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