Abstract
A core feature of Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) is the presence of difficulties in social interactions. This can be explained by an atypical attentional processing of social information: individuals with ASC may show problems with orienting attention to socially relevant stimuli and/or inhibiting their attentional responses to irrelevant ones. To shed light on this issue, we examined attentional orienting and inhibitory control to emotional stimuli (angry, happy, and neutral faces). An antisaccade task (with both prosaccade and antisacade blocks) was applied to a final sample of 29 children with ASC and 27 children with typical development (TD). Whereas children with ASC committed more antisaccade errors when seeing angry faces than happy or neutral ones, TD children committed more antisaccade errors when encountering happy faces than neutral faces. Furthermore, latencies in the prosaccade and antisaccade blocks were longer in children with ASC and they were associated with the severity of ASC symptoms. Thus, children with ASC showed an impaired inhibitory control when angry faces were presented. This bias to negative high-arousal information is congruent with affective information-processing theories on ASC, suggesting that threatening stimuli induce an overwhelming response in ASC. Therapeutic strategies where train the shift attention to emotional stimuli (i.e. faces) may improve ASC symptomatology and their socials functioning.
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Funding
This study has been funded by the Carlos III Health Institute (Ministry of Science and Innovation) through the Miguel Servet CP21/0008 and Juan Rodés JR22/00030 contracts, and cofinanced by the European Union. Likewise, it is part of the PI18/01352 and PI21/00549 projects, funded by the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) (Ministry of Science and Innovation) and cofinanced by the European Union.
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A.G-B., and M.P. designed the larger study from which this data was taken. A.G-B. and R.S-L. developed the concept for the current paper. R.S-L., A.M-G., and J.A. collected the data. L.S. analyzed the data. R.S-L., M.P., D.P., M.V., and A.G-B. wrote sections of the paper. All authors discussed the results and implications and edited the manuscript at all stages.
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Sahuquillo-Leal, R., Perea, M., Moreno-Giménez, A. et al. Emotional Face Processing in Autism Spectrum Condition: A Study of Attentional Orienting and Inhibitory Control. J Autism Dev Disord (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06200-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06200-6