Impaired detection of happy facial expressions in autism

Wataru Sato,Motomi Toichi,Sayaka Yoshimura,Reiko Sawada,Shota Uono,Yasutaka Kubota,Takanori Kochiyama,Morimitsu Sakihama

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-11900-y

Abstract

The detection of emotional facial expressions plays an indispensable role in social interaction. Psychological studies have shown that typically developing (TD) individuals more rapidly detect emotional expressions than neutral expressions. However, it remains unclear whether individuals with autistic phenotypes, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and high levels of autistic traits (ATs), are impaired in this ability. We examined this by comparing TD and ASD individuals in Experiment 1 and individuals with low and high ATs in Experiment 2 using the visual search paradigm. Participants detected normal facial expressions of anger and happiness and their anti-expressions within crowds of neutral expressions. In Experiment 1, reaction times were shorter for normal angry expressions than for anti-expressions in both TD and ASD groups. This was also the case for normal happy expressions vs. anti-expressions in the TD group but not in the ASD group. Similarly, in Experiment 2, the detection of normal vs. anti-expressions was faster for angry expressions in both groups and for happy expressions in the low, but not high, ATs group. These results suggest that the detection of happy facial expressions is impaired in individuals with ASD and high ATs, which may contribute to their difficulty in creating and maintaining affiliative social relationships.

Highlights

The detection of emotional facial expressions is an initial stage in conscious facial expression processing
Given the aforementioned evidence showing impaired emotional expression processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) groups, we hypothesized that the rapid detection of emotional vs. neutral facial expressions might be impaired in individuals with ASD
Based on the above data showing similarity in impaired facial expression processing among individuals with ASD and high autistic traits (ATs), we hypothesized that the rapid detection of emotional vs. neutral facial expressions would be impaired in individuals with high ATs

Summary

Introduction

The detection of emotional facial expressions is an initial stage in conscious facial expression processing. Given the aforementioned evidence showing impaired emotional expression processing in ASD groups, we hypothesized that the rapid detection of emotional vs neutral facial expressions might be impaired in individuals with ASD It remains to be seen whether detection of emotional facial expressions is affected in individuals from the general population who have high autistic traits (ATs). Based on the above data showing similarity in impaired facial expression processing among individuals with ASD and high ATs, we hypothesized that the rapid detection of emotional vs neutral facial expressions would be impaired in individuals with high ATs. In the present study, we tested these hypotheses by comparing ASD vs TD individuals in Experiment 1 and non-clinical individuals with high vs low ATs in Experiment 2 using the visual search paradigm (Fig. 1). To confirm the emotional impact of normal expressions compared with anti-expressions, we required participants to rate the stimuli in terms of subjectively experienced valence and arousal[112]

Methods

Results

Conclusion