Recognition of Emotions in Autism: A Formal Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Determining the integrity of emotion recognition in autistic spectrum disorder is important to our theoretical understanding of autism and to teaching social skills. Previous studies have reported both positive and negative results. Here, we take a formal meta-analytic approach, bringing together data from 48 papers testing over 980 participants with autism. Results show there is an emotion recognition difficulty in autism, with a mean effect size of 0.80 which reduces to 0.41 when a correction for publication bias is applied. Recognition of happiness was only marginally impaired in autism, but recognition of fear was marginally worse than recognition of happiness. This meta-analysis provides an opportunity to survey the state of emotion recognition research in autism and to outline potential future directions.

What can autism teach us about the role of sensorimotor systems in higher cognition? New clues from studies on language, action semantics, and abstract emotional concept processing

“…Difficulties in understanding and using words denoting internal states have been well documented in autism (BaronCohen et al, 1994;Happe, 1994;Jolliffe & Baron-Cohen, 1999;Tager-Flusberg & Sullivan, 1994;Tager-Flusberg & Sullivan, 1995;Tager-Flusberg, 1992). Such indication that emotional language processing is reduced also sits nicely with evidence for more general autistic difficulties in emotion recognition in both verbal and nonverbal stimuli (Harms, Martin, & Wallace, 2010; see Uljarevic & Hamilton, 2013, for a more nuanced view). To what degree motor and limbic cortices are causally involved in emotion and emotion word processing is an exciting focus of current investigation.…”

Does mindfulness meditation increase empathy? An experiment

“…In addition, people with autistic traits display restricted behavior patterns and interests (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Importantly, their cognitive empathy is impaired (Baron-Cohen, 2001;Dziobek et al, 2008;Uljarevic & Hamilton, 2013), but their affective empathy seems to be intact (Dziobek et al, 2008;Rogers, Dziobek, Hassenstab, Wolf, & Convit, 2007).…”

Alexithymia in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Its Relationship to Internalising Difficulties, Sensory Modulation and Social Cognition

“…Additionally, Berthoz et al (2002) reported that individuals with high alexithymia exhibit weaker brain activation when viewing emotional faces and this is specific to negative emotions (particularly anger). Emotion recognition difficulties are also found in individuals with ASD (Uljarevic and Hamilton 2013), although there is a high rate of variability in performance Jones et al 2011). Bird and Cook (2013) have suggested that the presence of alexithymia may account for this variability, and found that alexithymia, not autism severity, predicts difficulties in identifying emotions from facial or vocal expressions Heaton et al 2012), as well as with the strength of neural responses to watching people in pain (Bird et al 2010).…”