ABSTRACT
Deficits in facial affect recognition (FAR) are often reported in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) due to inappropriate visual search strategies. It is unclear, however, whether or not deficits in subliminal FAR are still present in autism when visual focus is controlled. Thirteen persons with ASD and 13 healthy participants took part in this experiment. Supraliminal FAR was assessed using a standardized, computer-aided test. Subliminal FAR was obtained by an emotional face priming paradigm. By using an eye-tracking technique, it was assured that the initial visual focus was on the eyes of the prime. Persons with ASD showed worse FAR in supraliminal face recognition. Although controlled for initial gaze direction, participants also showed reduced negative face priming. These data confirm that FAR is disturbed already on a pre-attentive level in autism.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Carsten Maurischat, Dr. Christian D. Wiesner, Petra Schneckenburger and Susanne Kell for their support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.