Typically developing adults with low and high Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores made rapid social evaluations of neutral faces when these were primed by briefly presented emotional faces. High AQ participants rated neutral faces as more threatening than low AQ participants, regardless of the prime condition. Both groups rated target neutral…

Establishing whether implicit responses to emotional cues are intact in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is fundamental to ascertaining why their emotional understanding is compromised. We used a temporal bisection task to assess for responsiveness to face and wildlife images that varied in emotional salience. There were no significant differences…

Self-conscious emotions, such as shame, guilt and pride, facilitate our social interactions by motivating us to adhere to social norms and external standards. In this study, we examined proneness to shame, guilt, hubristic pride and authentic pride in adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder traits (ASD-T) and in neurotypical (NT) adults. Relations…

The present study examined whether adults with high functioning autism (HFA) showed greater difficulties in (1) their self-reported ability to empathise with others and/or (2) their ability to read mental states in others' eyes than adults with Asperger syndrome (AS). The Empathy Quotient (EQ) and "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test…

Some, but not all, relevant studies have revealed face processing deficits among those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In particular, deficits are revealed in face processing tasks that involve emotion perception. The current study examined whether either deficits in processing emotional expression or deficits in processing social cognitive…

Typically-developing (TD) adults detect angry faces more efficiently within a crowd than non-threatening faces. Prior studies of this social threat superiority effect (TSE) in ASD using tasks consisting of schematic faces and homogeneous crowds have produced mixed results. Here, we employ a more ecologically-valid test of the social TSE and find…

Though many studies have examined facial affect perception by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), little research has investigated how facial expressivity in ASD is perceived by others. Here, naïve female observers (n = 38) judged the intensity, naturalness and emotional category of expressions produced by adults with ASD (n = 6) and…

Studies investigating inferential reasoning in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have focused on the ability to make socially-related inferences or inferences more generally. Important variables for intervention planning such as whether inferences depend on physical experiences or the nature of social information have received less consideration. A…

Rutherford and McIntosh (J Autism Dev Disord 37:187-196, 2007) demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more tolerant than controls of exaggerated schematic facial expressions, suggesting that they may use an alternative strategy when processing emotional expressions. The current study was designed to test this finding…

The Affective Circumplex Model holds that emotions can be described as linear combinations of two underlying, independent neurophysiological systems (arousal, valence). Given research suggesting individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty processing emotions, we used the circumplex model to compare how individuals with ASD and…

Facial expressions in sign language carry a variety of communicative features. While emotion can modulate a spoken utterance through changes in intonation, duration and intensity, in sign language specific facial expressions presented concurrently with a manual sign perform this function. When deaf adult signers cannot see facial features, their…

This study investigated processing of emotion words in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) using reaction times and event-related potentials (ERP). Adults with (n = 21) and without (n = 20) ASD performed a lexical decision task on emotion and neutral words while their brain activity was recorded. Both groups showed faster responses to emotion words…

It has been suggested that individuals with autism will be less responsive to the emotional content of music than typical individuals. With the aim of testing this hypothesis, a group of high-functioning adults on the autism spectrum was compared with a group of matched controls on two measures of emotional responsiveness to music, comprising…

Biological motion is easily perceived by neurotypical observers when encoded in point-light displays. Some but not all relevant research shows significant deficits in biological motion perception among those with ASD, especially with respect to emotional displays. We tested adults with and without ASD on the perception of masked biological motion…

Social referencing was investigated in 18-month-old siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD; "high-risk infants"). Infants were exposed to novel toys, which were emotionally tagged via adults' facial and vocal signals. Infants' information seeking (initiation of joint attention with an adult) and their approach/withdrawal behavior…