title: Relations between social-perceptual ability in multi- and unisensory contexts, autonomic reactivity, and social functioning in individuals with Williams syndrome.
abstract: Compromised social-perceptual ability has been proposed to contribute to social dysfunction in neurodevelopmental disorders. While such impairments have been identified in Williams syndrome (WS), little is known about emotion processing in auditory and multisensory contexts. Employing a multidimensional approach, individuals with WS and typical development (TD) were tested for emotion identification across fearful, happy, and angry multisensory and unisensory face and voice stimuli. Autonomic responses were monitored in response to unimodal emotion. The WS group was administered an inventory of social functioning. Behaviorally, individuals with WS relative to TD demonstrated impaired processing of unimodal vocalizations and emotionally incongruent audiovisual compounds, reflecting a generalized deficit in social-auditory processing in WS. The TD group outperformed their counterparts with WS in identifying negative (fearful and angry) emotion, with similar between-group performance with happy stimuli. Mirroring this pattern, electrodermal activity (EDA) responses to the emotional content of the stimuli indicated that whereas those with WS showed the highest arousal to happy, and lowest arousal to fearful stimuli, the TD participants demonstrated the contrasting pattern. In WS, more normal social functioning was related to higher autonomic arousal to facial expressions. Implications for underlying neural architecture and emotional functions are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA. Electronic address: pasley@salk.edu.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Järvinen
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA; Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Rowena
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Davide
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Crivelli
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Woo-VonHoogenstyn
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Ursula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Bellugi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004562:Electrocardiography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011581:Psychological Tests; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D012938:Social Perception; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D018980:Williams Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Autonomic nervous system; Electrodermal activity; Emotion; Facial expression; Multisensory integration; Social functioning; Vocalization; Williams syndrome