title: Wanting it Too Much: An Inverse Relation Between Social Motivation and Facial Emotion Recognition in Autism Spectrum Disorder.
abstract: This study examined social motivation and early-stage face perception as frameworks for understanding impairments in facial emotion recognition (FER) in a well-characterized sample of youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Early-stage face perception (N170 event-related potential latency) was recorded while participants completed a standardized FER task, while social motivation was obtained via parent report. Participants with greater social motivation exhibited poorer FER, while those with shorter N170 latencies exhibited better FER for child angry faces stimuli. Social motivation partially mediated the relationship between a faster N170 and better FER. These effects were all robust to variations in IQ, age, and ASD severity. These findings augur against theories implicating social motivation as uniformly valuable for individuals with ASD, and augment models suggesting a close link between early-stage face perception, social motivation, and FER in this population. Broader implications for models and development of FER in ASD are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-2500, USA.
authors.forename: Heather D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Garman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-2500, USA.
authors.forename: Christine J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Spaulding
authors.affiliation: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Sara Jane
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Webb
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: Amori Yee
authors.initials: AY
authors.lastname: Mikami
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: James P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Morris
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-2500, USA. matthew.lerner@stonybrook.edu.
authors.forename: Matthew D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Lerner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D000786:Anger; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D035841:Behavioral Research; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D056348:Emotional Intelligence; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D066107:Social Skills
keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Emotion recognition; N170; Social motivation; Social perception