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A comparison of autistic and mental age matched adult's recognition and integration of facial and situational cues of emotion
Abstract
The performance of fifteen autistic and seventeen non-autistic adults matched on mental age were compared on a task designed to measure the relative contribution of facial, situational, and combined facial and situation cues in judgments of others' emotions. Subjects judged the type of emotion (happy or sad) portrayed in black and white line drawn pictured scenarios and response latencies were recorded. In addition, subjects rated the intensity of the pictured emotions. Subjects were assessed in four separate conditions which included: facial cue alone, situational cue alone, combined congruent facial and situational cues and combined incongruent facial and situational cues. Both groups of subjects made few errors in their judgments of the emotions. The patterns of intensity ratings were similar between the two groups. There was evidence that the groups "took into account" both facial and situation cues when rating the intensity of simple emotions. The groups were not found to differ in terms of response latencies in any of the conditions, but the groups were found to differ in terms of the type of cue relied on in the combined incongruent facial and situation cue condition. In this condition, the autistic group was found to be more likely to report the emotion which was consistent with the facial expression, whereas the non-autistic group more often reported the emotion which was consistent with the situational cue. The data are discussed in terms of what is understood about the development of the recognition of facial and situational cues of emotion and the relative reliance on facial and situational cues of emotion in normal children. In addition, implications regarding the development of the recognition of emotions in autism are discussed.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Developmental psychology|Behaviorial sciences
Recommended Citation
Stanage, Thomas S, "A comparison of autistic and mental age matched adult's recognition and integration of facial and situational cues of emotion" (1992). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9314439.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9314439