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Basic and complex emotion recognition in children with autism: cross-cultural findings
Shimrit Fridenson-Hayo1, Steve Berggren2, Amandine Lassalle3
1Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel.
Molecular Autism
|December 27, 2016
Summary
Children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) show emotion recognition deficits for basic and complex emotions across multiple modalities. These deficits are consistent across cultures, suggesting a universal challenge in understanding emotions.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Cross-Cultural Psychology
Background:
- Children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) exhibit emotion recognition deficits across various expression modalities.
- Previous research often focused on basic emotions and limited modalities, neglecting cultural variations.
- The study addresses the unexplored area of cultural similarities and differences in emotion recognition in children with ASC.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate emotion recognition of basic and complex emotions in children with ASC compared to typically developing (TD) controls.
- To examine cross-cultural similarities and differences in emotion recognition across Israel, Britain, and Sweden.
- To explore the role of different expression modalities (face, voice, body, context) in emotion recognition deficits.
Main Methods:
- Compared 55 high-functioning children with ASC (ages 5-9) to 58 TD children, matched for age, sex, and IQ across three cultural sites.
- Utilized four tasks assessing recognition of basic and complex emotions from voice, facial expressions, bodily expressions, and integrated emotional video scenarios.
- Ensured cross-cultural comparability through standardized testing procedures and matched participant groups.
Main Results:
- Children with ASC demonstrated significant emotion recognition deficits for both basic and complex emotions across all tested modalities and their integration.
- Complex emotions were generally more challenging to recognize than basic emotions for all participants.
- While major findings were consistent across cultures, minor cross-cultural variations were observed in face and body expression recognition.
Conclusions:
- Emotion recognition (ER) deficits in ASC are multimodal, encompassing basic and complex emotions, and show considerable cross-cultural stability.
- These findings underscore the universal nature of ER challenges in ASC, independent of cultural context.
- Cross-cultural research is crucial for distinguishing universal autism-specific deficits from culturally influenced variations in empathy.
