Autistic Traits Do Not Affect Emotional Face Processing in a General Population Sample.

It has been suggested that atypical emotional face processing strategies observed in autism may extend in milder form to the general population. We investigated the relationship between autistic traits (AT) and gaze behaviour in a neurotypical adult sample. Novel naturalistic videos featuring happy,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders Vol. 50; no. 8; pp. 2673 - 2685
Autores principales: Greene, Ciara M., Suess, Esther, Kelly, Yazeed
Formato: pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Springer Nature Aug2020
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:It has been suggested that atypical emotional face processing strategies observed in autism may extend in milder form to the general population. We investigated the relationship between autistic traits (AT) and gaze behaviour in a neurotypical adult sample. Novel naturalistic videos featuring happy, fearful and neutral faces were first validated in a sample of 22 participants. A separate sample of participants (N = 67) then viewed the three videos in counterbalanced order. Eye-tracking data showed that participants looked longer at emotional than neutral faces, and exploration of facial features varied with emotional condition. AT did not influence viewing patterns, time to first fixation or number of early fixations. We conclude that AT in the general population do not affect visual processing of emotional faces.