Zampella Casey J, Parish-Morris Julia, Foy Jessica, Cola Meredith, Schultz Robert T, Herrington John D
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA.
University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Autism. 2025 May;29(5):1236-1245. doi: 10.1177/13623613241301113. Epub 2024 Nov 19.
Societal expectations for social-emotional behavior differ across sexes; however, diagnostic definitions of autism do not account for this when delineating "typical" versus "atypical." This study examines sex differences in autism in one behavior associated with strong gender biases: smiling. Computer vision was used to quantify smiling in 60 autistic (20 female) and 67 neurotypical (25 female) youth during conversations. Effects of sex and diagnosis were examined on degree of smiling, smile prototypicality, changes in smiling, and impact of smiling on interaction quality. Sex differences in smiling persisted across diagnosis groups: females smiled more than males, and their smiles were more prototypical. Autistic youth smiled less, and less prototypically, than neurotypical youth, with no sex by diagnosis interactions. In autism, the association between smile activity and interaction quality approached statistical significance, seemingly driven by autistic males but not females. Findings are consistent with population trends for females to smile more during social exchanges and "display rules" requiring more positive expressivity from females. Autism has historically been defined based on differences between autistic and neurotypical . Failure to acknowledge sex-based differences in social-emotional behavior may leave some females appearing to have fewer autistic traits, increasing their risk of being under-identified and misunderstood.
社会对社交情感行为的期望存在性别差异；然而，自闭症的诊断定义在界定“典型”与“非典型”时并未考虑到这一点。本研究考察了自闭症患者在一种存在强烈性别偏见的行为——微笑方面的性别差异。研究使用计算机视觉技术对60名自闭症青少年（20名女性）和67名神经典型青少年（25名女性）在对话过程中的微笑进行量化。考察了性别和诊断对微笑程度、微笑典型性、微笑变化以及微笑对互动质量的影响。微笑方面的性别差异在不同诊断组中均存在：女性比男性微笑更多，且她们的微笑更具典型性。自闭症青少年比神经典型青少年微笑更少，且典型性更低，不存在性别与诊断的交互作用。在自闭症中，微笑活动与互动质量之间的关联接近统计学显著性，似乎是由自闭症男性而非女性驱动的。研究结果与总体趋势一致，即女性在社交交流中微笑更多，以及“展示规则”要求女性表现出更多积极的表现力。自闭症历来是根据自闭症患者与神经典型者之间的差异来定义的。未能认识到社交情感行为中基于性别的差异可能会使一些女性表现出自闭症特征较少，增加她们未被识别和被误解的风险。
