title: Modulation of attentional blink with emotional faces in typical development and in autism spectrum disorders.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The attentional blink (AB) phenomenon was used to assess the effect of emotional information on early visual attention in typically developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The AB effect is the momentary perceptual unawareness that follows target identification in a rapid serial visual processing stream. It is abolished or reduced for emotional stimuli, indicating that emotional information has privileged access to early visual attention processes.
  
  
  METHODS
  We examined the AB effect for faces with neutral and angry facial expressions in 8- to 14-year-old children with and without an ASD diagnosis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Children with ASD exhibited the same magnitude AB effect as TD children for both neutral and angry faces.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Early visual attention to emotional facial expressions was preserved in children with ASD.
authors.affiliation: Center for Autism Research, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. yerysb@email.chop.edu
authors.forename: Benjamin E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Yerys
authors.forename: Ericka
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ruiz
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Strang
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sokoloff
authors.forename: Lauren
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kenworthy
authors.forename: Chandan J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Vaidya
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D020817:Asperger Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D054518:Attentional Blink; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012016:Reference Values