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Conscious and Non-conscious Representations of Emotional Faces in Asperger's Syndrome
Published on: July 31, 2016
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Autistic traits predict underestimation of emotional abilities.
Charlotte F Huggins1, Isobel M Cameron1, Justin H G Williams1
1Translational Neuroscience, Institute of Medical Sciences.
Journal of Experimental Psychology. General
|October 1, 2020
Summary
Emotional self-awareness is not diminished in autism. A new task revealed autistic traits correlate with underestimating emotional self-awareness, not lower ability. This challenges prior research and offers a new assessment method.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Emotional Intelligence
Background:
- Emotional self-awareness varies among individuals and impacts psychological well-being.
- Previous studies suggest reduced emotional self-awareness in autism, but findings may be limited by self-report biases or verbal intelligence.
- A need exists for objective measures of emotional self-awareness, particularly in neurodevelopmental contexts.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate a novel task measuring emotional self-awareness objectively.
- To investigate the relationship between emotional self-awareness, autistic traits, and alexithymia.
- To re-evaluate the assumption of diminished emotional self-awareness in autism.
Main Methods:
- Development of the emotional consistency (EC) task, assessing emotional self-awareness via consistent decision-making regarding emotional intensity.
- Participants judged which of two emotional images evoked a more intense experience.
- Analysis of the logical consistency of these judgments to reflect emotional self-awareness precision.
Main Results:
- Emotional consistency showed a significant correlation with lower self-reported alexithymia, but not directly with autistic traits.
- Autistic traits predicted a larger gap between EC-Task performance and self-reported difficulties in identifying feelings.
- Individuals with higher autistic traits tended to underestimate their emotional self-awareness, potentially due to metacognitive challenges.
Conclusions:
- Emotional self-awareness is not inherently diminished in individuals with autistic traits.
- The EC-Task provides a reliable, objective measure of emotional self-awareness, overcoming limitations of self-report.
- Findings suggest autistic traits are associated with metacognitive biases in self-perception of emotional awareness rather than reduced capacity.
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