The “Reading the Mind in Films” Task: Complex emotion recognition in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions

Abstract

Background: Individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) have difficulties recognizing mental states in others. Most research has focused on recognition of basic emotions from faces and voices separately. This study reports the results of a new task, assessing recognition of complex emotions and mental states from social scenes taken from feature films. The film format arguably is more challenging and ecologically closer to real social situations. Sample and method: A group of adults with ASC (n0/22) were compared to a group of matched controls from the general population (n0/22). Participants were tested individually. Results: Overall, individuals with ASC performed significantly lower than controls. There was a positive correlation between verbal IQ and task scores. Using task scores, more than 90% of the participants were correctly allocated to their group. Item analysis showed that the errors individuals with ASC make when judging socioemotional information are subtle. Conclusions: This new test of complex emotion and mental state recognition reveals that adults with ASC have residual difficulties in this aspect of empathy. The use of language-based compensatory strategies for emotion recognition is discussed.

Using Other Minds as a Window Onto the World: Guessing What Happened from Clues in Behaviour

“…Our finding is perhaps comparable with the report that individuals with ASD have difficulties in tasks that require them to infer complex emotions (e.g. Golan et al 2006). Similarly, Sawyer, Williamson, and Young, (2012) found that individuals with Asperger's Syndrome were less accurate than neurotypical adults in recognising complex mental state expressions.…”

Empathizing with robots: Fellow feeling along the anthropomorphic spectrum

“…Films have been previously used in studies of empathy as an emotionevoking stimulus [3,6] and are proven to have a number of important advantages. The emotional scene in films is realistic and may actually resemble real life situations, thus affording higher ecological validity.…”

Empathising and systematising in children with and without autism spectrum disorder

“…There are many study results that show that individuals with autism benefit more from technology based education materials due to the superior properties they show in their systematizing skills. For example, for individuals who are diagnosed with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism, recognition of complex emotions from facial expressions and voices and understanding of mental states teachings were done by using an interactive multimedia technique (Golan & Baron-Cohen, 2006). For this reason, new programs especially made with new computer technologies are increasing (Howlin, 2008).…”