Facial affect recognition in autism, ADHD and typical development

ABSTRACT Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have been associated with facial affect recognition (FAR) alterations. Methods: This study examined accuracy and response times for general and specific FAR in whole face and eye-region stimuli. FAR was assessed in matched samples of children and adolescents with ASD (n = 35), ADHD (n = 32), and typical development (TD) (n = 32) aged 8.6–15.9 years (M = 11.6; SD = 2.0). Results: Compared to TD, the ASD group performed less accurate and showed longer response times for general and specific FAR, mostly driven by problems in neutral and happy face identification. The ADHD group responded faster than the ASD group for global FAR. No differences between ADHD and TD were found. Attentional distractibility had a significant effect on FAR performance in ASD and ADHD. Conclusions: Findings confirm FAR alterations in ASD, but not ADHD, and endorse effects of attentional distractibility on FAR in ASD and ADHD. FAR and attention function training is clinically meaningful in ASD. Future studies should include control for visual attention and facial configuration skills, use naturalistic FAR material and also investigate implicit FAR.

[1]  Alex Martin,et al.  Facial Emotion Recognition in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Review of Behavioral and Neuroimaging Studies , 2010, Neuropsychology Review.

[2]  Joanne Rovet,et al.  Social cognitive and emotion processing abilities of children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders: a comparison with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. , 2009, Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research.

[3]  Thomas Dierks,et al.  Facial affect recognition training in autism: can we animate the fusiform gyrus? , 2006, Behavioral neuroscience.

[4]  C. Francks,et al.  Genetic linkage of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder on chromosome 16p13, in a region implicated in autism. , 2002, American journal of human genetics.

[5]  Adrian Angold,et al.  Relations Between Continuous Performance Test Performance Measures and ADHD Behaviors , 2003, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[6]  Daniel Lundqvist,et al.  The EU-Emotion Stimulus Set: A validation study , 2016, Behavior research methods.

[7]  D. Naiman,et al.  Randomized controlled effectiveness trial of executive function intervention for children on the autism spectrum. , 2014, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[8]  J. Piven,et al.  Visual Scanning of Faces in Autism , 2002, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[9]  P. Bolton,et al.  Attention and inhibition in children with ASD, ADHD and co-morbid ASD + ADHD: an event-related potential study , 2013, Psychological Medicine.

[10]  Lars Smith,et al.  Response Times of Children and Adolescents with Asperger Syndrome on an ‘Advanced’ Test of Theory of Mind , 2007, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[11]  K. Konrad,et al.  Development of neural correlates of empathy from childhood to early adulthood: an fMRI study in boys and adult men , 2010, Journal of Neural Transmission.

[12]  Richard W Morris,et al.  Emotional face processing in schizophrenia. , 2009, Current opinion in psychiatry.

[13]  C. Tardif,et al.  Spatial Frequency and Face Processing in Children with Autism and Asperger Syndrome , 2004, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[14]  G. Baird,et al.  A multimodal approach to emotion recognition ability in autism spectrum disorders. , 2011, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[15]  Kimberley D. Lakes,et al.  Categorical and Dimensional Definitions and Evaluations of Symptoms of ADHD: History of the SNAP and the SWAN Rating Scales. , 2012, The International journal of educational and psychological assessment.

[16]  S. Bölte,et al.  The recognition of facial affect in autistic and schizophrenic subjects and their first-degree relatives , 2003, Psychological Medicine.

[17]  Avi Besser,et al.  The Role of Simple Emotion Recognition Skills among School Aged Boys at Risk of ADHD , 2007, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[18]  Monique Ernst,et al.  Specificity of facial expression labeling deficits in childhood psychopathology. , 2007, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[19]  Livia Colle,et al.  Impaired recognition of negative basic emotions in autism: A test of the amygdala theory , 2006, Social neuroscience.

[20]  C. Gillberg,et al.  The FTF (Five to Fifteen): the development of a parent questionnaire for the assessment of ADHD and comorbid conditions , 2004, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

[21]  G. Baird,et al.  Psychiatric disorders in children with autism spectrum disorders: prevalence, comorbidity, and associated factors in a population-derived sample. , 2008, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[22]  Gerd Lehmkuhl,et al.  Do hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention have an impact on the ability of facial affect recognition in children with autism and ADHD? , 2008, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

[23]  Thomas F Gross,et al.  The Perception of Four Basic Emotions in Human and Nonhuman Faces by Children With Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities , 2004, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[24]  Elaine Chapman,et al.  Facial Affect Interpretation in Boys with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder , 2007, Child neuropsychology : a journal on normal and abnormal development in childhood and adolescence.

[25]  N. Minshew,et al.  A fine-grained analysis of facial expression processing in high-functioning adults with autism , 2007, Neuropsychologia.

[26]  S. Bölte,et al.  Face puzzle—two new video-based tasks for measuring explicit and implicit aspects of facial emotion recognition , 2013, Front. Psychol..

[27]  J. Constantino,et al.  Autistic traits in a population-based ADHD twin sample. , 2007, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[28]  P. Ekman.  Emotion in the human face , 1982 .

[29]  E. Schulz,et al.  Estimates of the Validity and Utility of the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test in the Assessment of Inattentive and/or Hyperactive-Impulsive Behaviors in Children , 2007, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[30]  S. Bölte,et al.  Emotion Recognition in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders , 2009, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[31]  B. Dritschel,et al.  Executive functions in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders , 2009, Brain and Cognition.

[32]  E. Willcutt,et al.  Executive dysfunction and delay aversion in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: nosologic and diagnostic implications. , 2008, Child and adolescent psychiatric clinics of North America.

[33]  Janet E. Lainhart,et al.  Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders in Children with Autism: Interview Development and Rates of Disorders , 2006, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[34]  Sven Bölte,et al.  Assessing autistic traits: cross‐cultural validation of the social responsiveness scale (SRS) , 2008, Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research.

[35]  John A. Sweeney,et al.  Emotion processing influences working memory circuits in pediatric bipolar disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. , 2010, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[36]  Joseph S. Raiker,et al.  Reaction time variability in ADHD: a meta-analytic review of 319 studies. , 2013, Clinical psychology review.

[37]  Jennifer A. Walsh,et al.  Visual Afterimages of Emotional Faces in High Functioning Autism , 2012, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[38]  A. Reiersen,et al.  Exploration of ADHD Subtype Definitions and Co-Occurring Psychopathology in a Missouri Population-Based Large Sibship Sample , 2012, Scandinavian journal of child and adolescent psychiatry and psychology.

[39]  B. H. Lo,et al.  Autism Spectrum Disorder , 2018, Journal of paediatrics and child health.

[40]  Helen McConachie,et al.  Interventions based on the Theory of Mind cognitive model for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). , 2014, The Cochrane database of systematic reviews.

[41]  Uta Frith,et al.  Implicit and Explicit Processes in Social Cognition , 2008, Neuron.

[42]  Essi Viding,et al.  Feeling, caring, knowing: different types of empathy deficit in boys with psychopathic tendencies and autism spectrum disorder , 2010, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[43]  Antonia Hamilton,et al.  Recognition of Emotions in Autism: A Formal Meta-Analysis , 2013, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[44]  I. Shochet,et al.  Do autism spectrum disorders differ from each other and from non-spectrum disorders on emotion recognition tests? , 2001, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

[45]  Isabel Dziobek,et al.  Autistic Symptomatology, Face Processing Abilities, and Eye Fixation Patterns , 2011, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[46]  Leanne M. Williams,et al.  ADHD and schizophrenia phenomenology: Visual scanpaths to emotional faces as a potential psychophysiological marker? , 2006, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[47]  J. VanMeter,et al.  Impairments in facial affect recognition associated with autism spectrum disorders: A meta-analysis , 2014, Development and Psychopathology.

[48]  Christopher Gillberg,et al.  Facial emotion recognition in child psychiatry: a systematic review. , 2013, Research in developmental disabilities.

[49]  S. Bölte,et al.  Training-induced plasticity of the social brain in autism spectrum disorder , 2015, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[50]  T. Clark,et al.  Autistic symptoms in children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder , 1999, European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

[51]  B. Rogé,et al.  Recognition of emotional and nonemotional facial expressions: a comparison between Williams syndrome and autism. , 2009, Research in developmental disabilities.

[52]  Andreia Santos,et al.  Emotion Understanding in Children with ADHD , 2009, Child psychiatry and human development.

[53]  Bernard Dan,et al.  Recognition of emotional facial expressions in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. , 2006, Pediatric neurology.

[54]  N. Minshew,et al.  The development of emotion recognition in individuals with autism. , 2009, Child development.

[55]  F. Castelli,et al.  Understanding emotions from standardized facial expressions in autism and normal development , 2005, Autism : the international journal of research and practice.

[56]  R. Goodman.  The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: a research note. , 1997, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[57]  Thomas Dierks,et al.  The development and evaluation of a computer-based program to test and to teach the recognition of facial affect , 2002, International journal of circumpolar health.

[58]  D. Keltner,et al.  Making sense of self-conscious emotion: linking theory of mind and emotion in children with autism. , 2003, Emotion.

[59]  C. Lord,et al.  Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule , 2016 .

[60]  J. Buitelaar,et al.  Theory of mind and emotion-recognition functioning in autistic spectrum disorders and in psychiatric control and normal children , 1999, Development and Psychopathology.

[61]  C. Conners,et al.  Conners' Continuous Performance Test II (CPT II) Computer Program for Windows, Technical Guide and Software Manual , 2000 .

[62]  R. Plomin,et al.  Evidence for overlapping genetic influences on autistic and ADHD behaviours in a community twin sample. , 2008, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[63]  U. Frith,et al.  Mindblind Eyes: An Absence of Spontaneous Theory of Mind in Asperger Syndrome , 2009, Science.

[64]  H. Heekeren,et al.  Atypical Reflexive Gaze Patterns on Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorders , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[65]  H. Roeyers,et al.  Empathic accuracy in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder , 2011 .

[66]  Carly Demopoulos,et al.  A Comparison of Social Cognitive Profiles in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Matter of Quantitative but not Qualitative Difference? , 2013, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[67]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Social Cognition, from Brains to Culture , 1984 .