Metacognitive Awareness of Facial Affect in Higher-Functioning Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Higher-functioning participants with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) viewed a series of face stimuli, made decisions regarding the affect of each face, and indicated their confidence in each decision. Confidence significantly predicted accuracy across all participants, but this relation was stronger for participants with typical development than participants with ASD. In the hierarchical linear modeling analysis, there were no differences in face processing accuracy between participants with and without ASD, but participants with ASD were more confident in their decisions. These results suggest that individuals with ASD have metacognitive impairments and are overconfident in face processing. Additionally, greater metacognitive awareness was predictive of better face processing accuracy, suggesting that metacognition may be a pivotal skill to teach in interventions.
Psychology Department, Hamilton College, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton, NY, 13323, USA. camillam@live.com.
Camilla M
CM
McMahon
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
Heather A
HA
Henderson
Department of Psychology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1020 Oakland Avenue, Indiana, PA, 15705, USA.
Lisa
L
Newell
Division of Science, Indiana University - Purdue University - Columbus, 4601 Central Avenue, Columbus, IN, 47203, USA.
Mark
M
Jaime
M.I.N.D. Institute, University of California - Davis, 2825 50th Street, Sacramento, CA, 95817, USA.
Peter
P
Mundy
D000293:Adolescent; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D001364:Awareness; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000067489:Metacognition; D008960:Models, Psychological
Autism; Awareness; Face processing; Metacognition; Monitoring; Overconfidence