Face and object processing in autism spectrum disorders

Abstract

The nature and extent of face-processing impairments in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remain contentious. The aim of this research study is to assess the face-and object-processing performance of individuals with ASD compared with typically developing controls. Our hypothesis was that individuals with ASD would be significantly impaired on tests of face processing but show intact object processing. More specifically, we tested two competing hypotheses to explain face-processing deficits: holistic hypothesis; second-order configural hypothesis. Twenty-six able adults with ASD and 26 intelligence quotient-matched typically developing controls completed two computerized tests of face and object discrimination. In task 1, the first picture (faces or cars) in a pair was presented as quickly as 40 msec to test holistic processing. In task 2, the decision was whether pairs of faces or houses had been altered in terms of the features or the distance between the features (the second-order configural properties). Individuals with ASD were impaired on all tests of face processing but showed intact object processing and the pattern of findings favored the holistic hypothesis. The heterogeneous pattern of performance in the clinical group showed that some individuals with ASD perform similarly to typically developing individuals in their face-processing skills, whereas others are more accurate in object processing compared with face processing.

Reduced face identity aftereffects in relatives of children with autism

“…Difficulties in perceiving and discriminating faces have been well documented in individuals with ASD (e.g., see Dawson, Webb, & McPartland, 2005, for review). Children and adults with ASD show poorer performance on a variety of face processing tasks compared with non-autistic individuals, including face recognition (Boucher, Lewis, & Collis, 1998;Ewing, Pellicano, & Rhodes, 2011a), face discrimination (Ewing et al, 2011a;Wallace, Coleman, & Bailey, 2008a), expression recognition (Rump, Giovannelli, Minshew, & Strauss, 2009;Wallace, Coleman, & Bailey, 2008b), and eye-gaze perception (Wallace, Coleman, Pascalis, & Bailey, 2006). Even when their performance is similar to that of non-autistic individuals, individuals with ASD appear to use atypical strategies, such as paying more attention to the mouth than the eyes (Klin, Jones, Schultz, Volkmar, & Cohen, 2002;Neumann, Spezio, Piven, & Adolphs, 2006;although see Falck-Ytter & von Hofsten, 2011, for a critique), and applying a local rather than holistic processing style (Joseph & Tanaka, 2002).…”

Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…The study found evidence of atypicalities in children with ASD, since the children seemed to rely more on local facial elements than did typically developing children (Deruelle, et al, 2008). Similar conclusions were reached by Wallace, Coleman and Bailey (2008). In their study, holistic processing and second-order configural processing were investigated.…”

“…Holistic processing was tested by asking participants to match different faces (or cars), while configural processing was assessed by asking participants to match faces (or houses) that differed either in configurations only or in features only. Wallace et al (2008) found an impairment in both aspects of face processing (holistic and configural) but intact object processing. Therefore, it was suggested that the consistently poor performance shown by ASD individuals represented a comprehensive cognitive impairment in face processing.…”

“…In a series of studies investigating holistic processing (composite faces task) and configural processing ("Jane task" by Mondloch et al, 2002) Nishimura andcolleagues (2008) showed that adults with ASD demonstrated normal holistic processing and normal sensitivity to second-order relations in both upright and inverted faces, thus providing evidence of configural processing of unfamiliar faces. Recognition (BTFR) (Benton et al, 1983) was administered to compare group performance on a standardised neuropsychological measure of face processing and so that correlations between BTFR score and accuracy on the two computerised tasks could be calculated, thereby validating the tasks' use in future neuropsychological studies (Wallace et al, 2008). In the study of holistic processing, participants had to decide if two faces or cars (presented sequentially with the first stimulus presented only for 40 msecs) were the same or different.…”

Atypical information-use in children with autism spectrum disorder during judgments of child and adult face identity

“…Relative to typically developing individuals, differences and difficulties have been reported in processing of emotional expressions (see Harms, Martin, & Wallace, 2010) and social cues such as eye gaze (Nation & Penny, 2008; Senju & Johnson, 2009) (note—here and elsewhere we make use of preferred, identity-first terminology; Kenny et al, 2015). Atypicalities are also reported in the discrimination and recognition of face identity (Behrmann et al, 2006; Boucher, Lewis, & Collis, 1998; Croydon, Pimperton, Ewing, Duchaine, & Pellicano, 2014; Gepner, de Gelder, & de Schonen, 1996; Hauck, Fein, Maltby, Waterhouse, & Feinstein, 1998; Klin et al, 1999; Tantam, Monaghan, Nicholson, & Stirling, 1989; Wallace, Coleman, & Bailey, 2008), particularly when tasks involve a memory component or careful processing of the eyes (see, Weigelt, Koldewyn, & Kanwisher, 2012). These identity-processing difficulties are rarely as functionally debilitating as those deficits observed in “face blind” individuals with prosopagnosia (Behrmann & Avidan 2005; Yardley, McDermott, Pisarski, Duchaine, & Nakayama, 2008) but may nevertheless importantly contribute to the social communication and interaction difficulties characteristic of autism (Weigelt et al, 2012).…”