Tai-Ling Liu1, Peng-Wei Wang1, Yi-Hsin Connie Yang2, Ray C Hsiao3, Yi-Yin Su4, Gary Chon-Wen Shyi5, Cheng-Fang Yen6. 1. Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Graduate Institute of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. 2. Department of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. 3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, United States of America; Department of Psychiatry, Children's Hospital, Seattle, WA, United States of America. 4. Research Assistant, Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. 5. Department of Psychology and Center for Research in Cognitive Sciences, National Chung-Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan. Electronic address: psycws@ccu.edu.tw. 6. Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Graduate Institute of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Electronic address: chfaye@cc.kmu.edu.tw.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Impaired social interaction is one of the core characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study was conducted to compare the facial emotion recognition (FER) abilities and emotional interference of adolescents with and without high-functioning ASD by performing the FER Task (FERT) using the faces of Taiwanese people and the Implicit Association Test (IAT), respectively. METHODS: This study recruited 71 adolescents with high-functioning ASD who aged at 11 to 18 years old as the ASD group and 63 adolescents without ASD from the Taiwanese community as the non-ASD group. We investigated FER abilities by conducting the FERT on six types of emotional expression with a three-level intensity rating, and we performed the IAT for evaluating the strength of a person's automatic association with mental representations of emotions in memory. RESULTS: Compared with the non-ASD group, the ASD group performed significantly worse on facial emotion differentiation and the ranking and rating of emotional intensity in the FERT. The ASD group had higher IAT scores than the non-ASD group. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that adolescents with high-functioning ASD have subtle deficits in facial emotion processing and emotional interference.
OBJECTIVE: Impaired social interaction is one of the core characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study was conducted to compare the facial emotion recognition (FER) abilities and emotional interference of adolescents with and without high-functioning ASD by performing the FER Task (FERT) using the faces of Taiwanese people and the Implicit Association Test (IAT), respectively. METHODS: This study recruited 71 adolescents with high-functioning ASD who aged at 11 to 18 years old as the ASD group and 63 adolescents without ASD from the Taiwanese community as the non-ASD group. We investigated FER abilities by conducting the FERT on six types of emotional expression with a three-level intensity rating, and we performed the IAT for evaluating the strength of a person's automatic association with mental representations of emotions in memory. RESULTS: Compared with the non-ASD group, the ASD group performed significantly worse on facial emotion differentiation and the ranking and rating of emotional intensity in the FERT. The ASD group had higher IAT scores than the non-ASD group. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that adolescents with high-functioning ASD have subtle deficits in facial emotion processing and emotional interference.
Authors: Tai-Ling Liu; Peng-Wei Wang; Yi-Hsin Connie Yang; Gary Chon-Wen Shyi; Cheng-Fang Yen Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2019-12-15 Impact factor: 3.390