This is why it is difficult for people with autism to identify angry facial expressions

The ability of people with autism to accurately identify facial expressions is affected by the speed and intensity of facial expressions produced, new researchers say. the study At the University of Birmingham.

In particular, people with autism tend to be unable to accurately identify anger from facial expressions produced at normal “real world” rates. Researchers have also found that for people with alexithymia-related disabilities, all expressions appear more intense and emotional.

The question of how people with autism perceive and relate to emotional expression has been discussed by scientists for over 30 years, and the relationship between autism and alexithymia has been investigated. Only in the last 10 years.

This new study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, uses new techniques to investigate the various effects of autism and alexithymia on the ability to accurately judge emotions suggested by different facial expressions. doing.

The lead author of this study is Connor Keating, a PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham School of Psychology and the Center for Human Brain Health. “People with autism begin to think that it may be related to the difference in how autistic and non-autistic people generate these expressions,” he said. It turns out that it is especially difficult to recognize the anger that is being there. If this is true, speaking may not be accurate. People with autism have “disorders” or “deficiencies” in their perception of emotions. About having-Autistic and non-autistic faces may speak different languages ​​regarding emotional transmission. “

In this study, 31 autistic participants and 29 non-autistic participants identify emotions from a series of videos consisting of dots representing key dynamic points of facial expression. This is a bit like the dots used to convert human movements to CGI. Animation. By changing the amount of movement for each facial expression, images were displayed with different emotional strengths and different speeds.

The team found that both autistic and non-autistic participants had similar cognitive abilities at different speeds and intensities across all emotions shown. Except for one particular aspect, the autistic group was unable to identify the expression of anger generated at normal speed and intensity. These are the types that may be encountered in daily life. Represents an expression of anger.

“When we looked at how well participants could recognize expressions of anger, we found that the characteristics of autism clearly contributed, but not the characteristics of alexithymia,” Connor explained. “This suggests that recognizing anger is a difficulty peculiar to autism.”

An important feature discovered by the team was that it was unique to participants with alexithymia and tended to perceive the expression to be very emotional. But interestingly, people with alexithymia. Was more likely to appreciate correct and incorrect emotions for expression. For example, people with alexithymia expressed happy expressions more intensely, happier, and more intensely than those without alexithymia. I rate it as angry and sad.

Connor explains: “There is an idea that people with Alexithymia cannot judge the strength of their emotional expression and are more likely to be confused about which emotions are being expressed.”

“Everyone will know or meet people with autism at some point in their lives. By understanding how people with autism recognize and understand the world, they are autistic. People with both illness and non-autism can begin developing training and other interventions to overcome. Some barriers to successful dialogue. ”

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