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Sarah Rubin

Professors Stone and Murray

PSYCH 448

14 March 2016

Research Review: Perception and Processing of Emotional Expressions in ASD

Study Feature Paper 1 Paper 2 Paper 3

Emotion Perception or
Brief Report: Accuracy A functional and structural
Social Cognitive
and Response Time for study of emotion and face
Complexity: What
the Recognition of Facial processing in children
Drives Face
Emotions in a Large with autism
Processing Deficits in
Sample of Children with
Corbett, Carmean,
Autism Spectrum
Autism Spectrum
Ravizza, Wendelken,
Disorder?
Disorder
Henry, Carter, & Rivera
Walsh, Creighton, &
Fink, Rosnay, Wierda,
Rutherford
Koot, & Beeger

Purpose/goal of study To determine the To examine the To further explore the role

specific deficit(s) relationship between of the amygdala and

underlying the deficits verbal ability, emotion fusiform gyrus in autism

in face processing recognition accuracy, and its purported

found in ASD and response time, using associated

a larger sample size socioemotional deficits.

Specific research Are the face How do verbal ability How do fusiform gyrus
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question processing deficits in and, specifically, word- activation and amygdala

ASD driven by deficits word matching accuracy, activation (and size) differ

in processing affect emotion in children with ASD

emotional expression, recognition accuracy? during emotion matching

or by deficits in and person matching?

processing social

cognitive complexity?

Hypothesis (if any) No specific hypothesis No specific hypothesis ASD group will have more

stated. stated. difficulty with face

perception, and will show

decreased amygdala and

fusiform activation. They

will also have bilateral

amygdala enlargement.

Participants:

ASD sample: (inclusion 23 high-functioning 86 high-functioning 12 high-functioning

criteria, #, ages, other adults, 5 females/18 children, 10 females/76 children, 0 females/12

demographics) males, ages 20-60 males, average age males, average age 9.01

years, recruited either 10.65 years, average years, average IQ of

from local assisted verbal IQ of 103.58, 90.71, IQ > 80, no serious

living group or Dutch social neurological/psychiatric/

database of past responsiveness scale medical conditions

participants score above threshold for

ASD, score at or above

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70 on Peabody Picture

Vocabulary Test-NL

Control sample(s): 23 typical adults, 5 114 typical children, 20 15 typical children, 2

(how matched to ASD females/18 males, females/94 males, females/13 males,

group, #, ages, other ages 20-50, recruited average age 10.32 average age 9.17 years,

demos) online, matched to years, Dutch social average IQ of 115.73, IQ

ASD group on responsiveness scale > 80, no serious

age/gender/IQ score below threshold for neurological/psychiatric/

ASD, score at or above medical conditions

70 on Peabody Picture

Vocabulary Test-NL

Procedures:

Stimuli used 1. Photos of new/old Photos of facial emotion 1. Photos of objects (for

faces expressions (happy, sad, control trials)

angry, and scared)

2. Photos of basic 2. Black and white photos

emotional facial of facial emotion

expressions expressions (happy, sad,

angry, afraid, and neutral)

3. Photos of complex
with hair cropped out
emotional facial

expressions 3. Photos of neutral

expressions on either the

same or different people

Type of response Key press (unlimited Matching facial emotion Button press to choose
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required response time) for: expression to correct “same” or “different”

emotion word (“face-

1. New or old face
word matching”)
2. Emotion shown

3. Emotion shown

Dependent variables Accuracy Accuracy, response time Accuracy, response time

(e.g., reaction time, #

errors)

Results ASD group performed When controlling for ASD group had less

poorer on the verbal ability, no accuracy and slower

expression-related difference in emotion response time in person

tasks. recognition accuracy or matching tasks, with

response time. When some activation of the

controlling for accuracy fusiform gyrus and

in word-word matching, amygdala. No significant

ASD group had lower differences found in

emotion recognition amygdala volumes.

accuracy.

Conclusions Deficits in face Social impairments found Atypical fusiform and

processing in ASD are in ASD are not due to amygdala activation may

caused by emotion basic emotion drive socioemotional

perception deficits, not recognition accuracy or processing deficits in

social cognitive response time deficits.

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complexity deficits. Children with ASD may ASD.

use word-word matching

in emotion recognition

tasks.

Research Review: Perception and Processing of Emotional Expressions in ASD

The perception and processing of faces, and specifically of emotional faces, is critical for

navigating our society. For individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), this complex

performance can be even more challenging. This difficulty serves to make social situations that

much harder for those who struggle with recognizing and interpreting others’ emotional cues.

While it has been observed that the ASD population seems to be more likely to struggle with

facial and emotional processing, there are still varying answers as to why this might be. As

these studies suggest, there are multiple angles that the research has taken. In order to better

understand both how and why individuals with ASD experience the faces and emotions of

others in such a different way than their peers, it is critical that we explore every possible facet.

The three studies I will examine each address the issue of facial emotional processing

for individuals with ASD from a different perspective. The Walsh et al. study focused on

pinpointing the more specific deficit driving the general face processing deficit. The two potential

deficits they looked at were emotional expression processing and social cognitive complexity

processing. The Fink et al. study explores the relationship between verbal ability, emotion

recognition accuracy, and response time. Another major factor was their use of a larger than

normal sample size to contrast their results with the results of the typically small studies. The

Corbett et al. study took a functional and structural approach to further explore the role of the

amygdala and fusiform gyrus in autism and its purported associated socioemotional deficits.
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One of the strongest underpinnings of these research studies is their individual level of attention

paid to the inclusion criteria and demographic makeup of its participants. With sample sizes of

23 and 12 in the ASD groups respectively, the Walsh et al. study and the Corbett et al. study

utilized a small pool in comparison to the standards of other psychological studies but a fairly

common one for ASD studies. This is a potential weakness, whereas the Fink et al. study’s

larger than average sample size of 86 may have greater external validity and may thus be more

generalizable to the larger population of people with ASD. In fact, one of the main goals of their

study was to address the lack of published ASD studies with large sample groups. Aside from

aggregate sample size, the gender breakdown is also important to consider. For the Walsh et al

study, the ASD group was comprised of 5 females and 18 males, which is a typical gender split

for such studies. In the Fink et al. and Corbett et al. studies, the gender discrepancies in their

ASD groups are even more pronounced, with a 10/76 split and a 0/12 split, respectively.

Although it can sometimes be difficult to recruit enough children with ASD to run a successful

study, both the Fink et al. and Corbett et al. studies used children with average ages of 10.65

and 9.01 years respectively. In ASD, one advantage to studying a younger group is that you

may have a chance of capturing a clear snapshot of their brain development before it has been

significantly influenced by the society in which they live. In regards to the Walsh et al. study’s

participants ages 20 to 60, it is interesting to consider how the increased time available for brain

development in the older subject pool could affect the learned and/or implicit mechanisms by

which those participants navigate socioemotional situations.

To move onto the results that these studies found in the course of their investigations,

we turn first to the Walsh et al. study, which found that emotion perception deficits were the root

cause of the face processing deficits in the ASD groups. The Fink et al. study found the social

impairments found in ASD were not caused by emotion recognition deficits. It also postulated

that children with ASD may word matching in emotion recognition tasks. Corbett et al. found that
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a lack of structural amygdala deficits in the ASD group but concluded that atypical fusiform

gyrus and amygdala activation could be a catalyst for socioemotional processing. The difference

between these studies is that the Fink et al. study focused more on emotional recognition as

opposed to the more active concept of emotional processing that was the focus of the Walsh et

al. and Corbett et al. studies. A possible conclusion that can be drawn from these three studies

is that the participants with ASD did not necessarily have a difficult time identifying the emotions

they were presented with but they did have trouble understanding those emotions. This

conclusion is supported by the anatomical findings of the Corbett et al. study which focused on

the pattern of brain activation that might explain these causes.

In order to expand research, future studies should test across different age groups of

participants to determine if the processing deficits found in these studies could be enduring

features of cognition in those with ASD. It is possible that due to the inherent plasticity of the

brain, societal influences that affect the results of adults or older children may not be as

significant in younger children.

In addition, future research could build on the potential for evidence-based treatment

programs to help people with ASD better understand social and emotional concepts that might

previously have evaded their knowledge. If significant support were shown for the theory that

emotion recognition drove social impairments, then training programs like the popular facial cue-

driven technical approach would be granted even more merit. According to these studies, and

specifically to Fink et al., it is not emotion recognition that drives the problem – rather, it is

emotion processing. This insight could open the door to new clinical-type research that is more

biologically based. One might develop a program that utilizes biofeedback and allows a person

with ASD to override those primary mechanisms and train their brain to process faces and facial

emotion differently. Aside from the problematic rhetoric of those with ASD needing to change,

this could be a fascinating and rewarding new area of research.

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Works Cited

Corbett, B. A., Carmean, V., Ravizza, S., Wendelken, C., Henry, M. L., Carter, C., & Rivera, S.

M. (2009). A functional and structural study of emotion and face processing in children

with autism. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 173(3), 196-205.

Fink, E., Rosnay, M. D., Wierda, M., Koot, H. M., & Begeer, S. (2014). Brief Report: Accuracy

and Response Time for the Recognition of Facial Emotions in a Large Sample of

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord Journal of Autism and

Developmental Disorders.

Walsh, J. A., Creighton, S. E., & Rutherford, M. D. (2015). Emotion Perception or Social

Cognitive Complexity: What Drives Face Processing Deficits in Autism Spectrum

Disorder? J Autism Dev Disord Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46(2),

615-623.