Introduction – Autism Spectrum Disorder
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects a person’s social interaction and communication because it interferes with how they perceive and interact with the world around them( Lord et al, 2018). In addition, the disease is characterized by a confined and repetitive behavior pattern. While there is frequently nothing about how persons with ASD look that distinguishes them from other people, they may speak, interact, conduct, and learn differently from the majority of other people. Individuals with ASD have a range of cognitive, reasoning, and problem-solving abilities, ranging from gifted too severely impaired (Campisi et al, 2018). Some persons with ASD require a great deal of assistance in their daily life, while others require less. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which encompasses autism, Asperger’s condition, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), exhibits both genetic and phenotypic variation. An estimated 65% of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a concomitant intellectual disability. It’s not uncommon for children to lose their ability to speak at some point between one and two years of age (average age 17 months) (Campisi et al, 2018).
Background of the lab report
The lab report’s primary objective is to examine autism traits in the general population utilizing a multidimensional method. By examining the broader autism phenotype (BAP) in typically developing individuals, we can get a conceptual understanding of both autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and normal development. BAP is a subclinical expression of one or more behaviors or traits that are qualitatively analogous to those observed in autistic individuals. These autistic-like symptoms were initially detected in relatives of children diagnosed with autism, and researchers have spent decades investigating the BAP in an attempt to explain the genetic basis of ASD.
Studying the BAP is critical for comprehending its benefits and effects on autistic individuals. In this study, the dependent variable is individuals with autism spectrum disorder, and the independent variable is the influence of condition on critical social interaction skills such as face emotion recognition and facial perception. As a result, the study’s hypotheses are “Autistic persons exhibit impaired face emotion identification and perception in comparison to non-autistic individuals.” The study’s primary objective is to ascertain the effect of autism spectrum condition on face emotion identification and perception. The study will compare autistic and non-autistic persons in a group setting
Broad Autism Phenotype
Broad Autism phenotype refers to an even broader spectrum of individuals who demonstrate difficulties with personality, language, and social-behavioral features at a level that is deemed above average but below the threshold for diagnosing autism. Individuals that fulfill the broad autism phenotype’s requirements are detected via a test called the “Social Responsiveness Scale” (Sabatino DiCriscio et al, 2018) It is hypothesized that parents that fit the broad autism phenotypic are more likely to have several children with autism than other parents. Several investigations appear to corroborate this notion. Parents, grandparents, and other ancestors tend to be more interested in abstract ideas like science, literature, or the arts than they do in actual individuals ( Rubenstein, et al 2018) In 1943, Leo Kanner published a study in which he described the mental traits of relatives of autistic children for the first time. The phenotype in relatives of people with ASD is generally described as being milder in studies.
Face Perception in Autism Spectrum disorders
Individuals with autism spectrum disorders may have a particularly difficult time recognizing faces, which can have serious ramifications for their ability to interact socially. Poor facial recognition might lead to a negative reaction, which has harmful repercussions. Because of this study’s findings about autistic people’s poor face recognition abilities, more people will be able to empathize with and offer social support to those with autism (Brewer, et al, 2019).The particular nature and even the existence of this potential difference between people with autism and the rest of the population has been studied extensively, but the exact nature and even the existence of this putative difference remains uncertain (Brewer, et al, 2019).Sensory processing, communication, and social interaction all depend on global information processing, the ability to synthesize disparate pieces of information into a cohesive whole.
Local processing, on the other hand, is essential for a variety of tasks, such as spotting a specific person in a crowd or catching a fleeting but telling expression on a friend’s face. Due to the fact that a person’s current behavioral goals may necessitate either local or global information processing, it is imperative that they have both (Chung et al, 2020). People with autism also tend to focus less on the eyes and have different face processing style .The disorder (ASD) is characterized by a deficit in visual attention and preference. People with autism pay less attention to social cues like faces and voices than non-autistic individuals do, but they pay greater attention to non-social cues like objects. Individuals with ASD exhibited significantly larger image center, background, and pixel-level bias, but significantly less object- and semantic-level bias( Chung et al, 2020). They have poorer saliency of weight
Face Emotion Recognition
Consistent evidence shows that people with autism have lower accuracy in face emotion recognition using ‘basic’ expressions. Faces have been proven to lower the accuracy of emotion detection and the intensity of facial emotions such as happiness and rage. Face masks have a limited effect on the fundamental mechanics of face recognition (Damer et al., 2020) (Martnez et al., 2020). Carbon (2020) displayed faces with six distinct emotional emotions in either a fully visible or partially hidden state. The researcher discovered that the masked faces condition resulted in decreased accuracy and confidence levels. Additionally, disgusted looks were perceived as furious, although other emotions were classified as neutral.
References
Brewer, R., Bird, G., Gray, K. L., & Cook, R. (2019). Face perception in autism spectrum disorder: Modulation of holistic processing by facial emotion. Cognition, 193, 104016.
Campisi, L., Imran, N., Nazeer, A., Skokauskas, N., & Azeem, M. W. (2018). Autism spectrum disorder. British Medical Bulletin, 127(1).
Carbon, C. C. (2020). Wearing face masks strongly confuses counterparts in reading emotions. Frontiers in psychology, 2526.
Chung, S., & Son, J. W. (2020). Visual perception in autism spectrum disorder: A review of neuroimaging studies. Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 31(3), 105.
Damer, N., Grebe, J. H., Chen, C., Boutros, F., Kirchbuchner, F., & Kuijper, A. (2020, September). The effect of wearing a mask on face recognition performance: an exploratory study. In 2020 International Conference of the Biometrics Special Interest Group (BIOSIG) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Lord, C., Elsabbagh, M., Baird, G., & Veenstra-Vanderweele, J. (2018). Autism spectrum disorder. The lancet, 392(10146), 508-520.
Martínez, A., Tobe, R., Dias, E. C., Ardekani, B. A., Veenstra-VanderWeele, J., Patel, G., … & Javitt, D. C. (2019). Differential patterns of visual sensory alteration underlying face emotion recognition impairment and motion perception deficits in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder. Biological psychiatry, 86(7), 557-567.
Rubenstein, E., & Chawla, D. (2018). Broader autism phenotype in parents of children with autism: A systematic review of percentage estimates. Journal of child and family studies, 27(6), 1705-1720.
Sabatino DiCriscio, A., & Troiani, V. (2018). The broader autism phenotype and visual perception in children. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 48(8), 2809-2820.
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