An islet of social ability in Asperger Syndrome: Judging social attributes from faces

Abstract

We asked adults with Asperger Syndrome to judge pictorial stimuli in terms of certain social stereotypes to evaluate to what extent they have access to this type of social knowledge. Sixteen adults with Asperger Syndrome and 24 controls, matched for age and intelligence, were presented with sets of faces, bodies and objects, which had to be rated on a 7-point scale in terms of trustworthiness, attractiveness, social status, and age, or, in the case of objects, price. Despite impaired performance on two important aspects of social cognition (second-order mentalizing and face recognition) the social judgements of the individuals with Asperger Syndrome were just as competent and consistent as those of their matched controls, with only one exception: there was a trend for them to be less able to judge the attractiveness of faces if they were the same sex. We explain this difference in terms of a weakness in mentalizing, specifically the ability to take a different point of view: While all other stereotypic attributions could be made from an egocentric point of view, judging the attractiveness of faces of one's own sex requires taking the perspective of someone of the opposite sex, a challenge for people with mentalizing problems. We conclude that individuals with Asperger Syndrome show preserved aspects of social knowledge, as revealed in the attribution of stereotypes to pictures of people. These findings suggest that there are dissociable subcomponents to social cognition and that not all of these are compromised in Asperger Syndrome.

Facial Trustworthiness Judgments in Children with ASD Are Modulated by Happy and Angry Emotional Cues

“…Our findings are consistent with previous adult studies reporting no significant differences in trustworthiness judgments between typical adults and adults with ASD [17]–[19]. However, there are also studies that have reported atypicalities in response to trustworthy and untrustworthy faces in adults with ASD [11], [20], [21].…”

“…Some studies report no significant differences in trustworthiness judgments between typical adults and adults with ASD [17]–[19]. Other studies report that individuals with ASD significantly overrate the trustworthiness of negatively valenced faces [11], [20], [21].…”

Experiences of Receiving a Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Survey of Adults in the United Kingdom

“…This figure is consistent with the results of Baron-Cohen et al (2001), and others (e.g., White, Hill, Winston, & Frith, 2006) who have used this tool with high functioning adults. There was no significant difference in total scores on the AQ between men (M= 39.06, SD 6.5) and women (M = 39.27, SD 8.6); t(118) = -.153, p = .88.…”

Appearance-based trust behaviour is reduced in children with autism spectrum disorder

“…Nor was there any difference in willingness to purchase reputation cues 2 Furthermore, an additional 2 x 2 mixed ANOVA also revealed an interaction between the effects of participant group (ASD, typical) and trustworthiness cue (faces, reputation) on trust behaviour, but unsurprisingly, given the small sample, this effect was only marginally significant, F(1, 16) = 3.42, p = .08, partial η 2 = .17. Caulfield et al, 2013;Mathersul et al, 2012;Pinkham et al, 2008;White et al, 2006) we observed a striking difference, relative to typical children, in the way that facial trustworthiness cues influenced behaviour.…”

“…Perhaps surprisingly, studies have often failed to find evidence of atypical facial trustworthiness judgments in individuals (both children and adults) with ASD (Caulfield, Ewing, Avard and Rhodes, 2013;Mathersul, McDonald and Rushby, 2012;Pinkham, Hopfinger, Pelphrey, Piven and Penn, 2008;White, Hill, Winston and Frith, 2006). Despite the links to atypical amygdala fuctioning in ASD, only a few studies have reported selectively atypical (inflated) trust ratings F o r P e e r R e v i e w 3 of untrustworthy-looking faces (Adolphs et al, 2001;Couture et al, 2010;Losh et al, 2009).…”