Ties between reading faces, bodies, eyes, and autistic traits

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Social Cognition

Background:

• COVID-19 pandemic necessitated reading social cues from masked faces.
• Social interaction relies on integrating visual information from faces, eyes, and bodies.
• Neuropsychiatric conditions, particularly autism spectrum disorder, can impact social cue interpretation.

Purpose of the Study:

• Examine gender-specific relationships between reading dynamic faces, bodies, and eyes.
• Investigate the link between these social cue reading abilities and autistic traits.
• Understand potential challenges in social interaction for individuals with autism spectrum disorder, especially during mask-wearing.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed tasks involving point-light displays of faces and body locomotion with emotional expressions.
• Emotional content inference from visual displays was assessed.
• The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test and Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire were administered.

Main Results:

• In females, inferring emotions from dynamic bodies and faces were strongly correlated.
• In males, reading cues from the eyes was linked to face reading.
• Neurotypical males showed a negative correlation between autistic traits and accuracy in reading faces, bodies, and eyes.

Conclusions:

• Social cognition exhibits gender-specific processing: females rely on dynamic cues, males on configural information.
• Difficulties in reading masked faces for males with autistic traits may not be compensated by body/face cues.
• Females' social cue reading is less tied to autistic traits, suggesting resilience in social interaction.