Visual search for basic emotional expressions in autism; impaired processing of anger, fear and sadness, but a typical happy face advantage

Farran, E. K., Branson, A. and King, B. J. (2011) Visual search for basic emotional expressions in autism; impaired processing of anger, fear and sadness, but a typical happy face advantage. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5 (1). pp. 455-462. ISSN 1750-9467 doi: 10.1016/j.rasd.2010.06.009

Abstract/Summary

Facial expression recognition was investigated in 20 males with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger syndrome (AS), compared to typically developing individuals matched for chronological age (TD CA group) and verbal and non-verbal ability (TD V/NV group). This was the first study to employ a visual search, “face in the crowd” paradigm with a HFA/AS group, which explored responses to numerous facial expressions using real-face stimuli. Results showed slower response times for processing fear, anger and sad expressions in the HFA/AS group, relative to the TD CA group, but not the TD V/NV group. Reponses to happy, disgust and surprise expressions showed no group differences. Results are discussed with reference to the amygdala theory of autism.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/37903
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology
Uncontrolled Keywords	Autism; Emotion; Visual search; Face processing
Publisher	Elsevier
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