Anaki David, Zadikov Mor Tal, Gepstein Vardit, Hochberg Ze'ev
Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Israel; Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
Neuropsychologia. 2016 Sep;90:274-85. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.024. Epub 2016 Aug 24.
Turner syndrome (TS) is a chromosomal condition that affects development in females. It is characterized by short stature, ovarian failure and other congenital malformations, due to a partial or complete absence of the sex chromosome. Women with TS frequently suffer from various physical and hormonal dysfunctions, along with impairments in visual-spatial processing and social cognition difficulties. Previous research has also shown difficulties in face and emotion perception. In the current study we examined two questions: First, whether women with TS, that are impaired in face perception, also suffer from deficits in face-specific processes. The second question was whether these face impairments in TS are related to visual-spatial perceptual dysfunctions exhibited by TS individuals, or to impaired social cognition skills. Twenty-six women with TS and 26 control participants were tested on various cognitive and psychological tests to assess visual-spatial perception, face and facial expression perception, and social cognition skills. Results show that women with TS were less accurate in face perception and facial expression processing, yet they exhibited normal face-specific processes (configural and holistic processing). They also showed difficulties in spatial perception and social cognition capacities. Additional analyses revealed that their face perception impairments were related to their deficits in visual-spatial processing. Thus, our results do not support the claim that the impairments in face processing observed in TS are related to difficulties in social cognition. Rather, our data point to the possibility that face perception difficulties in TS stem from visual-spatial impairments and may not be specific to faces.
特纳综合征（TS）是一种影响女性发育的染色体疾病。其特征为身材矮小、卵巢功能衰竭及其他先天性畸形，原因是性染色体部分或完全缺失。患有特纳综合征的女性经常遭受各种身体和激素功能障碍，同时存在视觉空间处理障碍和社会认知困难。先前的研究还表明她们在面部和情绪感知方面存在困难。在当前研究中，我们探讨了两个问题：第一，面部感知受损的特纳综合征女性是否也存在面部特定加工过程的缺陷。第二个问题是，特纳综合征患者的这些面部缺陷是与特纳综合征个体表现出的视觉空间感知功能障碍有关，还是与受损的社会认知技能有关。对26名患有特纳综合征的女性和26名对照参与者进行了各种认知和心理测试，以评估视觉空间感知、面部和面部表情感知以及社会认知技能。结果表明，患有特纳综合征的女性在面部感知和面部表情加工方面准确性较低，但她们表现出正常的面部特定加工过程（构型和整体加工）。她们在空间感知和社会认知能力方面也存在困难。进一步分析表明，她们的面部感知缺陷与视觉空间加工缺陷有关。因此，我们的结果不支持特纳综合征中观察到的面部加工缺陷与社会认知困难有关这一说法。相反，我们的数据表明，特纳综合征中面部感知困难可能源于视觉空间损伤，可能并非面部特有的问题。
