Traitement de l’information faciale dans l’autisme

Abstract

One of the core deficits of autistic pathology is disturbances in reciprocal social interactions. As faces are essential components of social interactions, many studies have explored face processing in autism. The present paper reviews behavioural and neuroimaging studies on neutral and emotional face processing. After hypothesis of deficit of face processing in autism, recent data suggest atypical perceptual processing of faces. Indeed, individuals with autism pay less attention to eyes’ region than typically developing persons and present a local bias, contrasting with configural processing of faces in non-autistic individuals. Furthermore, people with autism do not display automatic process typically induced in persons without autism by perception of emotional faces. Peculiarities of processing are also observed at the neurobiological level. Persons with autism do not activate the same brain regions than typically developing participants during facial information processing and do not exhibit the same pattern of evoked cerebral responses. However, to date, there is no data converging to the dysfunction of a specific cerebral area in autistic pathology. Recent hypothesis suggest alteration of cerebral connectivity instead of one neural structure. These peculiarities of processing are discussed in terms of social experience and expertise in face processing.