Abnormal Processing of Social Information from Faces in Autism

Adolphs, Ralph; Sears, Lonnie; Piven, Joseph

doi:10.1162/089892901564289

Cited by 514 publications

(413 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(59 reference statements)

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“…Less than a third of the AS group members recognised this mental state successfully, which supports evidence from other studies, showing specific difficulty in understanding deception (Baron-Cohen, 1992;Sodian & Frith, 1992). One study found that high-functioning adults with autism had difficulties assessing the trustworthiness and approachability of people from pictures of their faces (Adolphs et al, 2001). Their participants tended to evaluate people in the photos as being more trustworthy and approachable than controls' evaluations.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Cambridge Mindreading (CAM) Face-Voice Battery: Testing Complex Emotion Recognition in Adults with and without Asperger Syndrome

Golan

Baron‐Cohen

Hill

2006

J Autism Dev Disord

266

195

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Adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) can recognise simple emotions and pass basic theory of mind tasks, but have difficulties recognising more complex emotions and mental states. This study describes a new battery of tasks, testing recognition of 20 complex emotions and mental states from faces and voices. The battery was given to males and females with AS and matched controls. Results showed the AS group performed worse than controls overall, on emotion recognition from faces and voices and on 12/20 specific emotions. Females recognised faces better than males regardless of diagnosis, and males with AS had more difficulties recognising emotions from faces than from voices. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to social functioning in AS.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Adults with autism spectrum conditions may also not differ from typically developed controls in the ability to recognise the 6 basic emotions (Adolphs, Sears, & Piven, 2001). These groups also passed first-and second-order theory of mind tasks, which could be taken to indicate no theory of mind difficulty in autism.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Cambridge Mindreading (CAM) Face-Voice Battery: Testing Complex Emotion Recognition in Adults with and without Asperger Syndrome

Golan

Baron‐Cohen

Hill

2006

J Autism Dev Disord

266

195

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Supporting the hypothesis that amygdala dysfunction contributes to face processing abnormalities in ASD are some commonalities between ASD and patients with bilateral amygdala lesions (reviewed in [211,212]), including deficits in fear-face recognition, bias towards rating faces as more trustworthy and approachable [210], atypical patterns of face viewing [55,56] (but see [57]) and failure to attribute social intention to moving geometric shapes [213]. Other lines of evidence implicating amygdala dysfunction in ASD include evidence for amygdala neuropathology from post-mortem studies [214], and autistic-like social and emotional behavior among non-human primates with amygdala lesions early during infancy [215] (but see [216]).…”

Section: Impairments Of Facial Expression Recognition In Asdmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…For example, high functioning ASD adults were reported to rate faces as more trustworthy and approachable than did normal controls [210]. Also, Pelphrey et al (2002) found that relative to age and gender matched controls, high functioning adult males with ASD made more errors in identifying emotion expressions, being more likely to misidentify fear as anger, surprise or disgust, while identifying happiness, sadness and surprise at control levels [55].…”

Section: Impairments Of Facial Expression Recognition In Asdmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autism and the development of face processing

Golarai

Grill-Spector

Reiss

2006

Clinical Neuroscience Research

157

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Autism is a pervasive developmental condition, characterized by impairments in non-verbal communication, social relationships and stereotypical patterns of behavior. A large body of evidence suggests that several aspects of face processing are impaired in autism, including anomalies in gaze processing, memory for facial identity and recognition of facial expressions of emotion. In search of neural markers of anomalous face processing in autism, much interest has focused on a network of brain regions that are implicated in social cognition and face processing. In this review, we will focus on three such regions, namely the STS for its role in processing gaze and facial movements, the FFA in face detection and identification and the amygdala in processing facial expressions of emotion. Much evidence suggests that a better understanding of the normal development of these specialized regions is essential for discovering the neural bases of face processing anomalies in autism. Thus, we will also examine the available literature on the normal development of face processing. Key unknowns in this research area are the neuro-developmental processes, the role of experience and the interactions among components of the face processing system in shaping each of the specialized regions for processing faces during normal development and in autism. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease.

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“…Several brain structures and pathways have been suggested to underlie this disorder, among them the amygdala (Bachevalier, 1994;Baron-Cohen et al, 1999;Adolphs et al, 2001), which exhibits a number of abnormalities. Whereas earlier postmortem studies on autistic patients indicated an increased number of cells with reduced cell size in the cortical, medial, and central nuclei of the amygdala (Kemper and Bauman, 1998), more recent and modern stereological counts of neurons in the amygdala revealed a reduced number of neurons, particularly in the lateral nucleus (Schumann and Amaral, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abnormal Fear Conditioning and Amygdala Processing in an Animal Model of Autism

Markram

Rinaldi

Mendola

et al. 2007

Neuropsychopharmacol

331

262

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A core feature of autism spectrum disorders is the impairment in social interactions. Among other brain regions, a deficit in amygdala processing has been suggested to underlie this impairment, but whether the amygdala is processing fear abnormally in autism, is yet not clear. We used the valproic acid (VPA) rat model of autism to (a) screen for autism-like symptoms in rats, (b) test for alterations in amygdala-dependent fear processing, and (c) evaluate neuronal reactivity and synaptic plasticity in the lateral amygdala by means of in vitro single-cell electrophysiological recordings. VPA-treated animals displayed several symptoms common to autism, among them impaired social interactions and increased repetitive behaviors. Furthermore, VPA-treated rats were more anxious and exhibited abnormally high and longer lasting fear memories, which were overgeneralized and harder to extinguish. On the cellular level, the amygdala was hyperreactive to electrical stimulation and displayed boosted synaptic plasticity as well as a deficit in inhibition. We show for the first time enhanced, overgeneralized and resistant conditioned fear memories in an animal model of autism. Such hyperfear could be caused by the hyperreactivity and hyperplasticity found in the lateral amygdala, which may in turn be due to a deficit in the inhibitory system of the amygdala. We hypothesize an 'aversive world' syndrome that could, even if not a primary cause of the disorder itself, underlie some core symptoms in autism, such as impairments in social interactions and resistance to rehabilitation.

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Abnormal Processing of Social Information from Faces in Autism

Abstract: Abstract& Autism has been thought to be characterized, in part, by dysfunction in emotional and social cognition, but the pathology of the underlying processes and their neural substrates remain poorly understood.

Cited by 514 publications

References 40 publications

The Cambridge Mindreading (CAM) Face-Voice Battery: Testing Complex Emotion Recognition in Adults with and without Asperger Syndrome

The Cambridge Mindreading (CAM) Face-Voice Battery: Testing Complex Emotion Recognition in Adults with and without Asperger Syndrome

Autism and the development of face processing

Abnormal Fear Conditioning and Amygdala Processing in an Animal Model of Autism

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