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Face Processing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Independent or Interactive Processing of Facial Identity and Facial Expression?

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Abstract

The current study investigated if deficits in processing emotional expression affect facial identity processing and vice versa in children with autism spectrum disorder. Children with autism and IQ and age matched typically developing children classified faces either by emotional expression, thereby ignoring facial identity or by facial identity disregarding emotional expression. Typically developing children processed facial identity independently from facial expressions but processed facial expressions in interaction with identity. Children with autism processed both facial expression and identity independently of each other. They selectively directed their attention to one facial parameter despite variations in the other. Results indicate that there is no interaction in processing facial identity and emotional expression in autism spectrum disorder.

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Author notes

  1. Olivier Pascalis

    Present address: Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, Université Pierre Mendes France, BP 47, 38040, Grenoble, Cedex 9, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental Psychology, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, FB 06, Otto-Behaghel-Street 10/F1, 35394, Giessen, Germany

    Julia F. Krebs & Gudrun Schwarzer

  2. Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TP, UK

    Ajanta Biswas & Olivier Pascalis

  3. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Philipps-University Marburg, Marburg, Germany

    Inge Kamp-Becker & Helmuth Remschmidt

Authors
  1. Julia F. Krebs
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  2. Ajanta Biswas
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  3. Olivier Pascalis
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  4. Inge Kamp-Becker
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  5. Helmuth Remschmidt
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  6. Gudrun Schwarzer
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Correspondence to Julia F. Krebs.

Additional information

This research project was supported by the ‘Graduierten Kolleg: Neural representation and action control—NeuroAct’ (DFG 885/2) of the German Science Foundation (DFG) and a Scholarship awarded to Julia Krebs. Our special thanks go to all participants with and without autism and their families for their ongoing support and collaboration.

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Krebs, J.F., Biswas, A., Pascalis, O. et al. Face Processing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Independent or Interactive Processing of Facial Identity and Facial Expression?. J Autism Dev Disord 41, 796–804 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-010-1098-4

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