Does gaze direction affect the recognition of facial expressions of emotion in children with autism?

This study investigated whether eye gaze direction affects the recognition of facial expressions in children with autism. The study was especially targeted at investigating whether children with autism use gaze direction similarly as typically developing children in recognizing basic facial expressions (happiness, sadness, anger and fear). Twelve clinically diagnosed high-functioning children with autism and fifteen typically developing control children participated in the experiment. The study used a behavioral experiment in which reaction times and performance accuracy were measured in a facial expression recognition task. The expressions were displayed with both straight and averted eye gaze direction. The children were required to perform a two-choice response indicating whether a facial image presented on the computer screen looked happy or sad (happiness-sadness ­condition) or whether it looked angry or fearful (anger-fear ­condition. The response was executed by pressing one of the two buttons in a response box. The results did not reveal significant group differences in recognition of expressions of happiness and sadness as a function of gaze direction. However, significant group differences were found in recognition of expressions of anger and fear. Typically developing children recognized anger more quickly when displayed with direct rather than averted gaze, whereas gaze direction did not have an effect on the recognition of anger in children with autism. Furthermore, there was a tendency showing that the children with autism recognized fear more quickly when displayed with direct rather than averted gaze, whereas the gaze direction did not affect the recognition of fear in typically developing children. These differences can not be explained by any general abnormalities in facial expression recognition in children with autism, because significant group differences were not found in response accuracy when recognizing anger and fear. The results suggest that there are abnormalities in the way children with autism use gaze direction in recognition of expressions of anger and fear. KEY WORDS: High functioning autism, reaction times, facial expression recognition, gaze directio