Brown Laura S
Ohio University.
J Music Ther. 2017 Mar 1;54(1):55-79. doi: 10.1093/jmt/thw017.
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often struggle with social skills, including the ability to perceive emotions based on facial expressions. Research evidence suggests that many individuals with ASD can perceive emotion in music. Examining whether music can be used to enhance recognition of facial emotion by children with ASD would inform development of music therapy interventions.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of music with a strong emotional valance (happy; sad) on children with ASD's ability to label emotions depicted in facial photographs, and their response time.
Thirty neurotypical children and 20 children with high-functioning ASD rated expressions of happy, neutral, and sad in 30 photographs under two music listening conditions (sad music; happy music). During each music listening condition, participants rated the 30 images using a 7-point scale that ranged from very sad to very happy. Response time data were also collected across both conditions.
A significant two-way interaction revealed that participants' ratings of happy and neutral faces were unaffected by music conditions, but sad faces were perceived to be sadder with sad music than with happy music. Across both conditions, neurotypical children rated the happy faces as happier and the sad faces as sadder than did participants with ASD. Response times of the neurotypical children were consistently shorter than response times of the children with ASD; both groups took longer to rate sad faces than happy faces. Response times of neurotypical children were generally unaffected by the valence of the music condition; however, children with ASD took longer to respond when listening to sad music.
Music appears to affect perceptions of emotion in children with ASD, and perceptions of sad facial expressions seem to be more affected by emotionally congruent background music than are perceptions of happy or neutral faces.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童在社交技能方面常常存在困难，包括根据面部表情感知情绪的能力。研究证据表明，许多ASD个体能够感知音乐中的情绪。研究音乐是否可用于增强ASD儿童对面部情绪的识别，将为音乐治疗干预措施的开发提供依据。
本研究旨在调查具有强烈情感效价（快乐；悲伤）的音乐对ASD儿童识别面部照片中所描绘情绪的能力及其反应时间的影响。
30名发育正常的儿童和20名高功能ASD儿童在两种音乐聆听条件下（悲伤音乐；快乐音乐），对30张照片中快乐、中性和悲伤的表情进行评分。在每种音乐聆听条件下，参与者使用从非常悲伤到非常快乐的7分制对30张图像进行评分。同时还收集了两种条件下的反应时间数据。
显著的双向交互作用表明，参与者对快乐和中性面孔的评分不受音乐条件的影响，但悲伤面孔在悲伤音乐条件下比在快乐音乐条件下被认为更悲伤。在两种条件下，发育正常的儿童对快乐面孔的评分比ASD儿童更高，对悲伤面孔的评分也更悲伤。发育正常儿童的反应时间始终比ASD儿童短；两组对悲伤面孔的评分时间都比对快乐面孔的评分时间长。发育正常儿童的反应时间一般不受音乐条件效价的影响；然而，ASD儿童在听悲伤音乐时反应时间更长。
音乐似乎会影响ASD儿童的情绪感知，与快乐或中性面孔相比，悲伤面部表情的感知似乎更容易受到情感一致的背景音乐的影响。
