Morphing Task: The Emotion Recognition Process in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Recognizing a person’s identity is a fundamental social ability; facial expressions, in particular, are extremely important in social cognition. Individuals affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) display impairment in the recognition of emotions and, consequently, in recognizing expressions related to emotions, and even their identity. The aim of our study was to compare the performance of participants with ADHD, ASD, and typical development (TD) with regard to both accuracy and speed in the morphing task and to determine whether the use of pictures of digitized cartoon faces could significantly facilitate the process of emotion recognition in ASD patients (particularly for disgust). This study investigated the emotion recognition process through the use of dynamic pictures (human faces vs. cartoon faces) created with the morphing technique in three pediatric populations (7–12 years old): ADHD patients, ASD patients, and an age-matched control sample (TD). The Chi-square test was used to compare response latency and accuracy between the three groups in order to determine if there were statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) in the recognition of basic emotions. The results demonstrated a faster response time in neurotypical children compared to ASD and ADHD children, with ADHD participants performing better than ASD participants on the same task. The overall accuracy parameter between the ADHD and ASD groups did not significantly differ.

Establishing the Relationship Between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Emotional Facial Expression Recognition Deficit: A Systematic Review

“…In contrast, Buongiorno et al (2020) reported that children with ADHD exhibited more difficulty in surprise recognition (p = .00). This was supported by Greco et al (2021), who found that children with ADHD had a higher percentage of error recognition for surprised human faces compared with controls (p = .049) Neutral Expressions Airdrie et al (2018) reported significantly lower accuracy in identifying neutral facial expressions in adolescents with ADHD compared with that in control participants (p < .5). This was consistent with the results of children assessed by Kara et al (2017) (clear face emotions, p = .03; cropped eye emotions p = .026) and Buongiorno et al (2020) (p = .00).…”

“…Waddington et al (2018) described similar FER performance in children with ADHD, those with ASD, and a comorbid ASD + ADHD group. Deficits in FER may be an overlapping feature of children with ADHD and ASD, as suggested by Greco et al (2021). Airdrie et al (2018) simultaneously assessed eye movements during a FER task and found that adolescents with ADHD and conduct disorder symptoms spent less time focusing on the eye region of the face than controls.…”

“…Disgust Greco et al (2021) found that children with ADHD had a higher percentage of error when asked to evaluate disgust in cartoon faces (p = .009) compared to the control groupthey were more likely to confuse disgust with anger (p = .035). However, Maire et al (2019) did not find statistically significant differences in disgust recognition in ADHD patients for faces with half (p = .50) or full emotional expression intensity (p = .91) in children.…”

Clinical, Cognitive and Neurodevelopmental Profile in Tetrasomies and Pentasomies: A Systematic Review

“…Other emotional symptoms reported include emotional immaturity, obsessive-compulsive behaviours, impulsivity and behavioural dysregulation. ASD or ASD-like symptoms and ADHD have been described [ 54 , 55 ]. Patients with 48, XXYY also have generalised difficulties with socialization and communication.…”

Early Neuro-Psychomotor Therapy Intervention for Theory of Mind and Emotion Recognition in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Pilot Study

“…Children with ASD, ADHD, and OCD differentiated less between dynamic faces and dynamic flowers, with most of the effects seen in the occipital and temporal regions, suggesting that emotional difficulties shared in NDDs may be partly attributed to shared atypical visual information processing [ 54 ]. Another similar study conducted by using a morphing technique demonstrated a faster response time in neurotypical children compared to ASD and ADHD children, with ADHD participants performing better than ASD participants on the same task [ 55 ]. These studies have shown that there is an impairment of emotion recognition in neurodevelopmental disorders, leading to our decision to work on this skill in our neuro-psychomotor training.…”