Abstract

Facial expression perception is influenced by body posture, with perception biased toward the body emotion. Previous research has suggested that the magnitude of this biasing influence of body posture is driven by individual differences in the precision of facial expression representations underlying discrimination abilities, where lower precision leads to a greater influence of body posture. It is unclear however whether similar mechanisms might drive the influence of contextual cues in Autism, which is often characterised by reduced facial expression discrimination abilities. Here, we addressed this question by using online psychophysical methods to determine the precision of isolated face and body expression representations of anger and disgust, and the influence of body on facial expression perception, in autistic and non-autistic adults. Both groups showed a strong influence of body context on facial expression perception, but this influence was larger in the autistic group, mirroring their lower overall precision of facial expression representations relative to non-autistic individuals. Crucially, the magnitude of the biasing influence of body posture in both groups was related to the precision of individuals’ facial expression representations. The results suggest that similar principles govern the integration of facial expression and body posture information in both autistic and non-autistic individuals.

Details

Title
The influence of body posture on facial expression perception in Autism
Author
Finn, Abigail 1 ; Shah, Punit 2 ; de la Rosa, Stephan 3 ; Teufel, Christoph 4 ; von dem Hagen, Elisabeth 1 

 Cardiff University, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, School of Psychology, Cardiff, UK (GRID:grid.5600.3) (ISNI:0000 0001 0807 5670); Cardiff University, Wales Autism Research Centre, School of Psychology, Cardiff, UK (GRID:grid.5600.3) (ISNI:0000 0001 0807 5670) 
 University of Bath, School of Psychology, Bath, UK (GRID:grid.7340.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2162 1699) 
 IU International University of Applied Sciences, Department of Psychology, Erfurt, Germany (GRID:grid.465812.c) (ISNI:0000 0004 0643 2365) 
 Cardiff University, Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, School of Psychology, Cardiff, UK (GRID:grid.5600.3) (ISNI:0000 0001 0807 5670) 
Pages
27655
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3127424532
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.