Memory for Faces in Children with Autism

Hauck, Margaret; Fein, Deborah; Maltby, Nicholas; Waterhouse, Lynn; Feinstein, Carl

doi:10.1076/chin.4.3.187.3174

Cited by 122 publications

(105 citation statements)

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“…Consequently, the experimental shortcomings have made it difficult to form robust conclusions about the nature of the face-processing impairment in ASD. The few studies that have included nonface objects as control stimuli have found that affected individuals were unimpaired [Hauck et al, 1998;Teunisse and de Gelder, 2003] or showed superior object-processing performance [Blair et al, 2002;Boucher and Lewis, 1992]. The combination of impaired face and intact object processing has led to the proposal that individuals with ASD fail to use secondorder configural [Barton et al, 2004;Davies et al, 1994;Teunisse and de Gelder, 2003] or holistic [Deruelle et al, 2004;Joseph and Tanaka, 2003;Lopez et al, 2004;Serra et al, 2003;Teunisse and Degelder, 1994] information for face discrimination, but instead rely on feature processing [Davies et al, 1994;Deruelle et al, 2004;Lahaie et al, 2006;Langdell, 1978].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Face and object processing in autism spectrum disorders

2008

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The nature and extent of face-processing impairments in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remain contentious. The aim of this research study is to assess the face-and object-processing performance of individuals with ASD compared with typically developing controls. Our hypothesis was that individuals with ASD would be significantly impaired on tests of face processing but show intact object processing. More specifically, we tested two competing hypotheses to explain face-processing deficits: holistic hypothesis; second-order configural hypothesis. Twenty-six able adults with ASD and 26 intelligence quotient-matched typically developing controls completed two computerized tests of face and object discrimination. In task 1, the first picture (faces or cars) in a pair was presented as quickly as 40 msec to test holistic processing. In task 2, the decision was whether pairs of faces or houses had been altered in terms of the features or the distance between the features (the second-order configural properties). Individuals with ASD were impaired on all tests of face processing but showed intact object processing and the pattern of findings favored the holistic hypothesis. The heterogeneous pattern of performance in the clinical group showed that some individuals with ASD perform similarly to typically developing individuals in their face-processing skills, whereas others are more accurate in object processing compared with face processing.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Face and object processing in autism spectrum disorders

2008

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“…Many studies of face processing in children with autism have demonstrated the presence of an impairment that is widespread and present from an early age (Dawson et al, 2002), affecting both the perception of and the memory for faces (Ellis, Ellis, Fraser, & Deb, 1994;Hauck, Fein, Maltby, Waterhouse, & Feinstein, 1998;Klin et al, 1999;Langdell, 1977). The perceptual difficulties also affect the perception of the affect of faces (Hobson, 1986;Hobson, Ouston, & Lee, 1988), the perception of direction of gaze (Jolliffe & BaronCohen, 1997) and sometimes even the perception of gender (Hobson, 1987;Njiokiktjien et al, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Configural processing in autism and its relationship to face processing

et al. 2006

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Studies of the perceptual performance of individuals with autism have focused, to a large extent, on two domains of visual behavior, one associated with face processing and the other associated with global or holistic processing. Whether autistic individuals differ from neurotypical individuals in these domains is debatable and, moreover, the relationship between the behaviors in these two domains remains unclear. We first compared the face processing ability of 14 adult individuals with autism with that of neurotypical controls and showed that the autistic individuals were slowed in their speed of face discrimination. We then showed that the two groups differed in their ability to derive the global whole in two different tasks, one using hierarchical compound letters and the other using a microgenetic primed matching task with geometric shapes, with the autistic group showing a bias in favor of local information. A significant correlation was also observed between performance on the face task and the configural tasks. We then confirmed the prediction that the ability to derive the global whole is not only critical for faces but also for other objects as well, as the autistic individuals performed more slowly than the control group in discriminating between objects. Taken together, the results suggest that the bias for local processing seen in autistic individuals might have an adverse impact on their ability to process faces and objects.

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“…Individuals with ASD have been shown to have a poorer memory for faces than controls (Hauck, Fein, Maltby, Waterhouse and Feinstein, 1998;Williams, Goldstein and Minshew, 2005), and are less susceptible to the face inversion effect (Langdell, 1978;Hobson, Ouston, and Lee 1988). Overall individuals with ASD appear to be less efficient at processing facial identity, facial expressions of emotion and processing/using the eye gaze of others (for reviews see Behrmann, Thomas and Humphreys, 2006;Sasson, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attentional allocation of autism spectrum disorder individuals: Searching for a Face-in-the-Crowd

Moore

Reidy

Heavey

2015

Autism

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A study is reported which tests the proposition that faces capture the attention of those with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) less than a typical population. A visual search task based on the Face-in-the-Crowd paradigm was used to examine the attentional allocation of ASD adults for faces. Participants were required to search for discrepant target images from within 9-image arrays. Both participants with ASD and control participants demonstrated speeded identification of faces compared to non-face objects. This indicates that when attention is under conscious control both ASD and TD comparison adults show an attentional bias for faces, which contrasts with previous research which found an absence of an attentional bias for faces in ASD. Theoretical implications of this differentiation are discussed.

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Memory for Faces in Children with Autism

Cited by 122 publications

References 0 publications

Face and object processing in autism spectrum disorders

Face and object processing in autism spectrum disorders

Configural processing in autism and its relationship to face processing

Attentional allocation of autism spectrum disorder individuals: Searching for a Face-in-the-Crowd

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