title: Recognizing biological motion and emotions from point-light displays in autism spectrum disorders.
abstract: One of the main characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are problems with social interaction and communication. Here, we explored ASD-related alterations in 'reading' body language of other humans. Accuracy and reaction times were assessed from two observational tasks involving the recognition of 'biological motion' and 'emotions' from point-light displays (PLDs). Eye movements were recorded during the completion of the tests. Results indicated that typically developed-participants were more accurate than ASD-subjects in recognizing biological motion or emotions from PLDs. No accuracy differences were revealed on two control-tasks (involving the indication of color-changes in the moving point-lights). Group differences in reaction times existed on all tasks, but effect sizes were higher for the biological and emotion recognition tasks. Biological motion recognition abilities were related to a person's ability to recognize emotions from PLDs. However, ASD-related atypicalities in emotion recognition could not entirely be attributed to more basic deficits in biological motion recognition, suggesting an additional ASD-specific deficit in recognizing the emotional dimension of the point light displays. Eye movements were assessed during the completion of tasks and results indicated that ASD-participants generally produced more saccades and shorter fixation-durations compared to the control-group. However, especially for emotion recognition, these altered eye movements were associated with reductions in task-performance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Kinesiology, Group Biomedical Sciences, Research Center for Movement Control and Neuroplasticity, KU Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium.
authors.forename: Evelien
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Nackaerts
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wagemans
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Helsen
authors.forename: Stephan P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Swinnen
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wenderoth
authors.forename: Kaat
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Alaerts
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D008297:Male; D009038:Motion