The Animal in Me: Enhancing Emotion Recognition in Adolescents with Autism Using Animal Filters.
Liam Cross, Myles Farha, Gray Atherton
PMID 31451966WHAT IT FOUND
Animal-filtered faces produced more accurate emotion recognition than original human faces in 15 adolescents with autism, many with intellectual disability, especially for happy and angry faces.
Key findings
01Participants matched emotion words to animal-filtered faces more accurately than to original human faces.
02The animal-filter advantage was mainly seen for happy and angry faces, not sad, surprised or afraid faces.
03Autism-related behaviour scores predicted emotion recognition more strongly for original human faces than for animal-filtered faces.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 15 adolescents from one residential school were tested, so the result may not apply to other settings or to people with different levels of autism. IQ was not measured. Developmental ages were supplied by occupational therapists, so cognitive ability may have influenced the scores. The study tested recognition of pictures in one session. It did not test whether this improves emotion recognition in conversation or daily life. The animal-filtered faces were recoloured and set in an animal context, so the study cannot show exactly which feature made recognition easier. The emotion-specific analyses were exploratory, and only happy and angry faces showed clear differences.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that animal filters are an effective therapy for emotion recognition. The study only compared one-time recognition of filtered and unfiltered pictures in 15 adolescents, and it did not test whether this helps communication or daily functioning.