Face individual identity recognition: a potential endophenotype in autism.
Ilaria Minio-Paluello, Giuseppina Porciello, Alvaro Pascual-Leone and 1 others
PMID 33081830WHAT IT FOUND
Face-blindness affects 36% of autistic adults, compared to 6% of controls.
In this subgroup, poor face memory predicts difficulty reading mental states from eyes. Self-reported face difficulties did not match test results, so patients may not know they have this deficit.
Key findings
01Prosopagnosia (face-blindness) was found in 36% of autistic adults versus 6% of neurotypical controls, with odds of being prosopagnosic 8.5 times higher for autistic individuals.
02Autistic adults with prosopagnosia showed no advantage in recognizing upright faces over inverted faces, unlike autistic adults without prosopagnosia, suggesting a specific deficit in holistic face processing.
03In autistic adults with prosopagnosia, better face memory scores predicted better ability to infer mental states from the eye region, but this link was absent in those without prosopagnosia.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was not epidemiological and may not represent the true prevalence of prosopagnosia in autism. Results may not generalize to children, individuals with intellectual disability, or females, as the sample included only 20% females and adults without ID. The study is cross-sectional and cannot determine if face memory deficits contribute to social difficulties or are a separate co-occurring condition.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health, Ministero della Salute, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Harvard Catalyst, Innovative Medicines Initiative, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Autism Research Trust, NIHR, and other foundations. The text does not report specific author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a patient's self-reported difficulty with faces accurately reflects their ability. In this study, self-reported prosopagnosia traits did not predict actual face memory performance in autistic adults, so clinical judgment should rely on objective observation or testing rather than patient report alone.