Research results show that people with autism have difficulty recognizing anger from facial expressions

A new study from the University of Birmingham shows that the ability of people with autism to accurately identify facial expressions is influenced by the rate and intensity of facial expressions produced.

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, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities, A new technique is used to investigate the various effects of autism and alexithymia on a person’s ability to accurately measure the emotions suggested by different facial expressions.

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 are beginning to wonder if it may be related to the difference in how autistic and non-autistic people produce these expressions,” he said. It turns out that it is especially difficult to recognize the anger that autistic people have “disorders” or “deficiencies” in their perception of emotions-of autism and non-autism. The face may speak a different language when it comes to communicating emotions. “

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.

Examining how well participants could perceive the expression of anger, they found that it was definitely due to the characteristics of autism, not to the characteristics of alexithymia. This suggests that recognizing anger is a difficulty peculiar to autism. “

PhD researcher at Connor Keating, University of Birmingham, Faculty of Psychology and Center for Human Brain Health

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.”

He said, “Everyone will know or meet people with autism at some point in their lives. A better understanding of how people with autism recognize and understand the world. With some barriers to successful dialogue, both autistic and non-autistic people can begin to develop training and other interventions to overcome. “