Ioannou, C;
El Zein, M;
Wyart, V;
Scheid, I;
Amsellem, F;
Delorme, R;
Chevallier, C;
(2017)
Shared mechanism for emotion processing in adolescents with and without autism.
Scientific Reports
, 7
, Article 42696. 10.1038/srep42696.
![[thumbnail of srep42696.pdf]](https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/style/images/fileicons/text.png) |
Text
srep42696.pdf - Published Version Available under License : See the attached licence file. Download (710kB) |
Abstract
Although, the quest to understand emotional processing in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has led to an impressive number of studies, the picture that emerges from this research remains inconsistent. Some studies find that Typically Developing (TD) individuals outperform those with ASD in emotion recognition tasks, others find no such difference. In this paper, we move beyond focusing on potential group differences in behaviour to answer what we believe is a more pressing question: do individuals with ASD use the same mechanisms to process emotional cues? To this end, we rely on model-based analyses of participants’ accuracy during an emotion categorisation task in which displays of anger and fear are paired with direct vs. averted gaze. Behavioural data of 20 ASD and 20 TD adolescents revealed that the ASD group displayed lower overall performance. Yet, gaze direction had a similar impact on emotion categorisation in both groups, i.e. improved accuracy for salient combinations (anger-direct, fear-averted). Critically, computational modelling of participants’ behaviour reveals that the same mechanism, i.e. increased perceptual sensitivity, underlies the contextual impact of gaze in both groups. We discuss the specific experimental conditions that may favour emotion processing and the automatic integration of contextual information in ASD.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Shared mechanism for emotion processing in adolescents with and without autism |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/srep42696 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep42696 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2017. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1543071 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
