Emotional attribution in high-functioning individuals with autistic spectrum disorder: A functional imaging study
Abstract
Objective To determine whether expertise in the attribution of emotion from basic facial expressions in high-functioning individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is supported by the amygdala, fusiform, and prefrontal regions of interest (ROI) and is comparable to that of typically developing individuals.Method Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 14 males with ASD and 10 matched adolescent controls while performing emotion match (EM) (perceptual), emotion label (EL) (linguistic), and control tasks. Accuracy, response time, and average activation were measured for each ROI.Results There was no significant difference in accuracy, response time, or ROI activation between groups performing the EL task. The ASD group was as accurate as the control group performing the EM task but had a significantly longer response time and lower average fusiform activation.Conclusions Expertise in the attribution of emotion from basic facial expressions was task-dependent in the high-functioning ASD group. The hypothesis that the high-functioning ASD group would be less expert and would have reduced fusiform activation was supported in the perceptual task but not the linguistic task. The reduced fusiform activation in the perceptual task was not explained by reduced expertise; it is therefore concluded that reduced fusiform activation is associated with the diagnosis of ASD.
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Three studies, those of Ogai et al. (2003), Pierce et al. (2004) and Piggot et al. (2004), failed to find any significant differences in amygdala activation for the ASD samples compared to controls.
“However, three studies, those of Ogai et al. (2003), Pierce et al. (2004) and Piggot et al. (2004), failed to find any significant differences in amygdala activation for the ASD samples compared to controls.”
From Vision in autism spectrum disorders (2009) · cites this paper as Piggot et al. (2004)
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- Authors
- Piggot, J., Kwon, H., Mobbs, D., Blasey, C., Lotspeich, L., Menon, V., Bookheimer, S., & Reiss, A. L.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Corresponding author
- Piggot, Judith
- Venue
- Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2004-04
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 473-480
- ISSN
- 0890-8567 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2064755515
- Cited by
- 201
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 18 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 4.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- NIH (MH01142, MH50047, HD31715, MH64708)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, high-functioning autism, facial emotion recognition, emotional attribution, fusiform gyrus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, emotion perception, emotion labeling, reaction time (psychology)
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Amygdala, Analysis of Variance, Autistic Disorder, Cerebral Cortex, Child, Emotions, Facial Expression, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Psycholinguistics, Social Perception, Case-Control Studies
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