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Brief Report: Perception of Body Posture—What Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder might be Missing

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Abstract

Autism has been associated with atypical face and configural processing, as indicated by the lack of a face inversion effect (better recognition of upright than inverted faces). We investigated whether such atypical processing was restricted to the face or extended to social information found in body postures. An inversion paradigm compared recognition of upright and inverted faces, body postures, and houses. Typical adults demonstrated inversion effects for both faces and body postures, but adults with autism demonstrated only a face inversion effect. Adults with autism may not have a configural processing deficit per se, but instead may have strategies for recognizing faces not used for body postures. Results have implications for therapies employing training in imitation and body posture perception.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, 80208, USA

    Catherine L. Reed, Paula M. Beall, Lila Kopelioff & Danielle J. Pulham

  2. School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

    Valerie E. Stone

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO, 80262, USA

    Susan L. Hepburn

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  1. Catherine L. Reed
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  2. Paula M. Beall
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  3. Valerie E. Stone
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  4. Lila Kopelioff
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  5. Danielle J. Pulham
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  6. Susan L. Hepburn
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Correspondence to Catherine L. Reed.

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Reed, C., Beall, P.M., Stone, V.E. et al. Brief Report: Perception of Body Posture—What Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder might be Missing. J Autism Dev Disord 37, 1576–1584 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0220-0

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