Abstract
BackgroundPrevious research on the reward system in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) suggests that children with ASD anticipate and process social rewards differently than typically developing (TD) children—but has focused on the reward value of unfamiliar face stimuli. Children with ASD process faces differently than their TD peers. Previous research has focused on face processing of unfamiliar faces, but less is known about how children with ASD process familiar faces. The current study investigated how children with ASD anticipate rewards accompanied by familiar versus unfamiliar faces.MethodsThe stimulus preceding negativity (SPN) of the event-related potential (ERP) was utilized to measure reward anticipation. Participants were 6- to 10-year-olds with (N = 14) and without (N = 14) ASD. Children were presented with rewards accompanied by incidental face or non-face stimuli that were either familiar (caregivers) or unfamiliar. All non-face stimuli were composed of scrambled face elements in the shape of arrows, controlling for visual properties.ResultsNo significant differences between familiar versus unfamiliar faces were found for either group. When collapsing across familiarity, TD children showed larger reward anticipation to face versus non-face stimuli, whereas children with ASD did not show differential responses to these stimulus types. Magnitude of reward anticipation to faces was significantly correlated with behavioral measures of social impairment in the ASD group.ConclusionsThe findings do not provide evidence for differential reward anticipation for familiar versus unfamiliar face stimuli in children with or without ASD. These findings replicate previous work suggesting that TD children anticipate rewards accompanied by social stimuli more than rewards accompanied by non-social stimuli. The results do not support the idea that familiarity normalizes reward anticipation in children with ASD. Our findings also suggest that magnitude of reward anticipation to faces is correlated with levels of social impairment for children with ASD.
Highlights
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a disorder defined by socialcommunicative deficits and repetitive and restricted behaviors
We found a significant main effect of group, F(1, 26.06) = 4.91, p = .035, 95% CI [2.50 to 10.81], such that the face stimulus elicited a larger Nc component for typically developing (TD) children compared to children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)
While the current study investigated reward anticipation of social versus nonsocial stimuli, and other event-related potential (ERP) studies of the reward system in ASD have focused on reward processing of monetary stimuli only [30,31], our results are consistent with these investigations insofar as we found that children with ASD elicit similar reward anticipation to their TD peers for nonsocial stimuli
Summary
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a disorder defined by socialcommunicative deficits and repetitive and restricted behaviors. We tested the hypothesis that, unfamiliar faces may not be rewarding for children with ASD, a socially important familiar face, such a caregiver’s face, may have greater reward value than an unfamiliar face. Previous research on the reward system in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) suggests that children with ASD anticipate and process social rewards differently than typically developing (TD) children—but has focused on the reward value of unfamiliar face stimuli. Previous research has focused on face processing of unfamiliar faces, but less is known about how children with ASD process familiar faces. The current study investigated how children with ASD anticipate rewards accompanied by familiar versus unfamiliar faces
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
