Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston, 1 Autumn Street, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2013 Jan;43(1):188-99. doi: 10.1007/s10803-012-1565-1.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty with social-emotional cues. This study examined the neural, behavioral, and autonomic correlates of emotional face processing in adolescents with ASD and typical development (TD) using eye-tracking and event-related potentials (ERPs) across two different paradigms. Scanning of faces was similar across groups in the first task, but the second task found that face-sensitive ERPs varied with emotional expressions only in TD. Further, ASD showed enhanced neural responding to non-social stimuli. In TD only, attention to eyes during eye-tracking related to faster face-sensitive ERPs in a separate task; in ASD, a significant positive association was found between autonomic activity and attention to mouths. Overall, ASD showed an atypical pattern of emotional face processing, with reduced neural differentiation between emotions and a reduced relationship between gaze behavior and neural processing of faces.
自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)患者通常在社交情感线索方面存在困难。本研究使用眼动追踪和事件相关电位(ERP)技术,在两个不同的范式中,分别检查了 ASD 青少年和典型发育(TD)青少年在情绪面孔处理方面的神经、行为和自主神经相关指标。在第一个任务中,两组在扫描面部时表现相似,但在第二个任务中发现,只有 TD 组的情绪相关 ERP 会随情绪表达而变化。此外,ASD 对非社交刺激的神经反应增强。只有在 TD 中,眼动追踪时对眼睛的注意力与在另一个任务中更快的面孔敏感 ERP 相关;而在 ASD 中,自主活动与对嘴巴的注意力之间存在显著的正相关关系。总的来说,ASD 表现出一种非典型的情绪面孔处理模式,情绪之间的神经分化减少,以及注视行为与面孔神经处理之间的关系减少。