Intégration typique des indices émotionnels des corps et des visages dans le trouble du spectre de l'autisme

Aperçu: G.M.

Contrairement à la prédiction, les observateurs avec un diagnostic de TSA ont montré une intégration typique des indices liés à l'émotion du visage et du corps. Les analyses de corrélation ont suggéré une relation entre la capacité à catégoriser l'émotion des visages isolées et la susceptibilité à l'influence contextuelle dans l'échantillon TSA; Les personnes ayant une classification imprécise de l'émotion faciale ont été davantage influencées par les indices de posture corporelle.

Cognition. 2017 May 16;165:82-87. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.05.011.

Typical integration of emotion cues from bodies and faces in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Brewer R¹, Biotti F², Bird G³, Cook R².

Author information

1

Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Electronic address: Rebecca.Brewer@rhul.ac.uk

2

Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK.

3

Experimental Psychology Department, University of Oxford, UK; MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King's College London, UK; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, UK.

Abstract

Contextual cues derived from body postures bias how typical observers categorize facial emotion; the same facial expression may be perceived as anger or disgust when aligned with angry and disgusted body postures. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are thought to have difficulties integrating information from disparate visual regions to form unitary percepts, and may be less susceptible to visual illusions induced by context. The current study investigated whether individuals with ASD exhibit diminished integration of emotion cues extracted from faces and bodies. Individuals with and without ASD completed a binary expression classification task, categorizing facial emotion as 'Disgust' or 'Anger'. Facial stimuli were drawn from a morph continuum blending facial disgust and anger, and presented in isolation, or accompanied by an angry or disgusted body posture. Participants were explicitly instructed to disregard the body context. Contextual modulation was inferred from a shift in the resulting psychometric functions.Contrary to prediction, observers with ASD showed typical integration of emotion cues from the face and body. Correlation analyses suggested a relationship between the ability to categorize emotion from isolated faces, and susceptibility to contextual influence within the ASD sample; individuals with imprecise facial emotion classification were influenced more by body posture cues.

Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

PMID: 28525805

DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.05.011