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Rules versus Prototype Matching: Strategies of Perception of Emotional Facial Expressions in the Autism Spectrum

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Abstract

When perceiving emotional facial expressions, people with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) appear to focus on individual facial features rather than configurations. This paper tests whether individuals with ASD use these features in a rule-based strategy of emotional perception, rather than a typical, template-based strategy by considering outcome implications of these strategies. Rule-based strategies are more tolerant of extreme stimuli than are template-based ones. Tolerance for exaggerated emotional facial expressions in individuals with ASD compared to IQ and education matched controls was tested in a forced-choice paradigm. For five of six emotions, those with ASD were more likely to accept the most exaggerated images as most realistic. People with ASD appear to rely more heavily on a rule-based strategy than a template-based strategy in perceiving emotional facial expressions.

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Notes

  1. It is important to note that these participants have no time pressures. Not surprisingly, the ASD group took significantly longer to complete the session than did the control group. However, because group differences in speed of processing may be due to a variety of group differences, and due to use of many types of strategies, a group difference in time is non-diagnostic, and would tell us little about strategies used. The design of this study, therefore, makes outcome independent of processing speed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Andrea Kingdon and Justin Mattina for help with data collection, and the participants and their families for helping us with this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street, West Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L8, USA

    M. D. Rutherford

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Denver, 2155 S. Race St., Denver, CO, 80208, USA

    Daniel N. McIntosh

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Correspondence to M. D. Rutherford.

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Rutherford, M.D., McIntosh, D.N. Rules versus Prototype Matching: Strategies of Perception of Emotional Facial Expressions in the Autism Spectrum. J Autism Dev Disord 37, 187–196 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0151-9

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