Investigating the Influence of Autism Spectrum Traits on Face Processing Mechanisms in Developmental Prosopagnosia.
Regan Fry, Xian Li, Travis C Evans and 3 others
PMID 36173532WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with developmental prosopagnosia and high autism traits show the same face recognition and perception deficits as those with low traits.
The high-trait group had worse emotion recognition from eyes and different brain activity in social processing regions, but their core face blindness profile was not distinct.
Key findings
01Behavioral face processing profiles (memory, perception, holistic processing) were statistically similar between prosopagnosics with high and low autism traits.
02Prosopagnosics with high autism traits performed significantly worse on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test compared to those with low autism traits.
03Neuroimaging showed reduced face selectivity in the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) for the high autism trait group, while other face regions were similar to the low trait group.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used the Autism Quotient (AQ) to define high autism traits, not a clinical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The sample sizes for the AQ+ (n=15) and AQ− (n=28) groups were small, limiting power to detect subtle differences. The study was conducted on adults, so findings may not generalize to children. Eye-tracking was not used, so the study could not distinguish between attention to facial features and perceptual sensitivity. Not all participants completed all tasks (e.g., only 31 DPs completed the emotion recognition test, and no controls did).
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest were reported in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that autism traits cause a different type of face blindness. The core face recognition and perception deficits were statistically indistinguishable between high and low trait groups; the main difference was in emotion recognition and specific brain activity patterns, not general face processing ability.