Autistic adults have insight into their relative face recognition ability

Area of Science:

• Neurodevelopmental Disorders
• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Cognition

Background:

• Lifelong face recognition difficulties are assessed using self-report questionnaires like the PI20.
• Previous research suggested autistic individuals may have metacognitive deficits, impairing self-assessment of face recognition.
• This proposed deficit implies a disconnect between self-reported face recognition ability (PI20 scores) and objective performance (e.g., Cambridge Face Memory Test).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between self-reported face recognition abilities and objective performance in autistic adults.
• To determine if autistic individuals can accurately infer their face recognition impairment relative to the general population.

Main Methods:

• Seventy-seven autistic adults completed the PI20 questionnaire.
• Participants also underwent performance testing using two variants of the Cambridge Face Memory Test.
• Statistical analyses examined correlations between PI20 scores and objective face recognition performance.

Main Results:

• Significant correlations were observed between PI20 scores and performance on both Cambridge Face Memory Test variants in autistic adults.
• These findings contradict previous reports suggesting a lack of correlation and a metacognitive deficit.
• A wide range of face recognition abilities was found within the autistic sample, from average to developmental prosopagnosia levels, independent of non-verbal intelligence or autism severity.

Conclusions:

• Autistic adults demonstrate the ability to accurately infer their face recognition capabilities.
• The findings challenge the notion of a widespread metacognitive deficit in face recognition self-assessment among autistic individuals.
• Face recognition ability is highly variable in autism and not solely explained by cognitive or clinical factors.