Patterns of Visual Scanning as Predictors of Emotion Identification in Normal Aging.

Abstract

Emotion identification appears to decline with age, and deficient visual scanning may contribute to this effect. Eye movements of 20 older adults (OAs) and 20 younger adults (YAs) with normal saccades were recorded while viewing facial expressions. OAs made fewer fixations overall, and they made a higher proportion of fixations to the lower halves of faces. Topographical distribution of fixations predicted better OA accuracy for identifying disgust than other negative emotions. Impaired OA accuracy for fear and anger was specific to vision, with normal identification of these emotions in the auditory domain. Age-related frontal-lobe atrophy may affect the integrity of the frontal eye fields, with consequent scanning abnormalities that contribute to difficulties in identifying certain emotions.

The Role of Alexithymia in Reduced Eye-Fixation in Autism Spectrum Conditions

“…R 2 values indicated on each graph scan paths of the eyes and mouth may be unrelated to autism diagnosis, but instead are determined (in part) by the degree of co-morbid alexithymia in the sample of individuals with autism. Second, many studies have demonstrated the importance of typical scan paths in recognising facial emotion (Aviezer et al 2008;Calder et al 2000;Smith et al 2005;Wong et al 2005), therefore if alexithymia is associated with atypical scan paths to eyes and mouth, then the inconsistent findings with respect to recognition of emotional facial expression in autism (see Bal et al 2010;Jemel et al 2006) may also be explained by varying degrees of co-morbid alexithymia in the sample of individuals with autism across studies. We suggest therefore, that future studies of emotion processing in individuals with autism obtain measures of alexithymia in order to determine whether any impairments seen are due to autism, alexithymia, or the combination of these two factors.…”

“…As emotion recognition relies on appropriate fixation of the inner features of the face (Aviezer et al 2008;Calder et al 2000;Smith et al 2005;Wong et al 2005), the atypical visual scan paths exhibited by alexithymic individuals may therefore result in impaired recognition of emotion from facial expressions. These results support 'shared network' (Preston and de Waal 2002) accounts of social cognition.…”

“…More generally, many studies show that in order to accurately categorize observed emotional expressions one must appropriately scan eye and mouth features, as different emotional expressions are most reliably signalled by different parts of the face (Aviezer et al 2008;Calder et al 2000;Smith et al 2005;Wong et al 2005).…”

“…Several studies support this conjecture, reporting impaired recognition of facial emotion in alexithymia (Mann et al 1994;Parker et al 1993;Jessimer and Markham 1997;Lane et al 1996Lane et al , 2000Prkachin et al 2009). The reliance of accurate emotion recognition on typical visual scan paths to emotional face stimuli (Aviezer et al 2008;Calder et al 2000;Smith et al 2005;Wong et al 2005), makes it possible that the impaired emotion recognition in individuals with alexithymia is due to atypical attention to the eye and mouth regions of emotional face stimuli. As far as we are aware, no previous study has examined visual scan paths in individuals with alexithymia (irrespective of autism diagnosis).…”

“…Findings of impaired emotion recognition in individuals with alexithymia but without autism raise the possibility that levels of co-morbid alexithymia in individuals with autism determine the appropriateness of visual scan paths to emotional faces, particularly eye:mouth ratios which have been shown to be important for recognising emotion (Aviezer et al 2008;Calder et al 2000;Smith et al 2005;Wong et al 2005). Varying degrees of co-morbid alexithymia across studies may therefore explain the heterogeneity of findings in relation to atypical eye:mouth fixation behaviour in autism.…”