Emotional Reactions of Children with Autism: A … · Background In autism, for unfamiliar people:...
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Emotional Reactions of Children with Autism: A Review and an Eye-tracking Study Heather Nuske, Dr. Giacomo Vivanti, Dr. Kristelle Hudry and Prof. Cheryl Dissanayake July, 2013
Transcript of Emotional Reactions of Children with Autism: A … · Background In autism, for unfamiliar people:...
Emotional Reactions of Children with Autism: A Review and an Eye-tracking Study
Heather Nuske, Dr. Giacomo Vivanti, Dr. Kristelle Hudry and Prof. Cheryl Dissanayake
July, 2013
The starting point….
Widespread belief: individuals with autism are emotionally detached from others
Does this reflect reality? How do people with autism process emotions?
Emotional communication builds relationships
Review More than 200 studies on emotion processing (Nuske, Vivanti & Dissanayake, 2013)
1. 2.
Review More than 200 studies on emotion processing (Nuske, Vivanti & Dissanayake, 2013)
Difficulties more consistently identified on implicit than explicit tasks
1. 2.
Review More than 200 studies on emotion processing (Nuske, Vivanti & Dissanayake, 2013)
Explicit emo,on recogni,on
• Selec&on of emo&onal state • e.g., labeling emo&on
Difficulties more consistently identified on implicit than explicit tasks
1. 2.
Review More than 200 studies on emotion processing (Nuske, Vivanti & Dissanayake, 2013)
Explicit emo,on recogni,on
• Selec&on of emo&onal state • e.g., labeling emo&on
Implicit emo,onal appraisal
• Automa&c responses • e.g., con&ngent cogni&ve, behavioural or physiological changes
Difficulties more consistently identified on implicit than explicit tasks
1. 2.
Review More than 200 studies on emotion processing (Nuske, Vivanti & Dissanayake, 2013)
Implicit emo,onal appraisal
• Automa&c responses • e.g., con&ngent cogni&ve, behavioural or physiological changes
Difficulties more consistently identified on implicit than explicit tasks
1. 2.
Review More than 200 studies on emotion processing (Nuske, Vivanti & Dissanayake, 2013)
Implicit emo,onal appraisal
• Automa&c responses • e.g., con&ngent cogni&ve, behavioural or physiological changes
Research Question
Difficulties more consistently identified on implicit vs. explicit tasks
1. 2.
Research Question
Difficulties more consistently identified on implicit vs. explicit tasks
Almost all research on processing of emotion in unfamiliar people
1. 2.
Research Question
How do individuals with autism (implicitly) react to the emotions of familiar people?
Difficulties more consistently identified on implicit vs. explicit tasks
Almost all research on processing of emotion in unfamiliar people
1. 2.
Not the same emotion for all!
Respond differently to familiar people
Organisation of social life (Herrmann et al., 2012; Schmidt, Rakoczy, & Tomasello, 2012)
Background
Normative response to familiar, but not unfamiliar people in autism (Aylward et al., 2004; Oberman, Ramachandran & Pineda, 2008; Pierce et al., 2004; Pierce & Redcay, 2008)
Attachment to caregivers in autism (e.g., Capps, Sigman, & Mundy, 1994; Dissanayake & Crossley, 1996)
Less physiological reactivity to emotions of unfamiliar people in autism (e.g., Blair, 1999; Kuchinke et al., 2011; Corona et al., 1998; Riby et al., 2012)
Background
Normative response to familiar, but not unfamiliar people in autism (Aylward et al., 2004; Oberman, Ramachandran & Pineda, 2008; Pierce et al., 2004; Pierce & Redcay, 2008)
Attachment to caregivers in autism (e.g., Capps, Sigman, & Mundy, 1994; Dissanayake & Crossley, 1996)
Less physiological reactivity to emotions of unfamiliar people in autism (e.g., Blair, 1999; Kuchinke et al., 2011; Corona et al., 1998; Riby et al., 2012)
Children with autism are more empathic towards caregivers than unfamiliar people (Hudry & Slaughter, 2009)
Background
In autism, for unfamiliar people:
• Slower brain response to faces (e.g., Webb et al., 2006)
• Slower emotion recognition (e.g., Akechi et al., 2009; Bal et al., 2010)
• Delayed facial reactivity to emotions (Oberman et al., 2009)
• Slower brain response to emotional facial expressions (e.g., Korpilahti et al., 2007)
Timing, an important factor
Background
Background In autism, for unfamiliar people:
• Slower brain response to faces (e.g., Webb et al., 2006)
• Slower emotion recognition (e.g., Akechi et al., 2009; Bal et al., 2010)
• Delayed facial reactivity to emotions (Oberman et al., 2009)
• Slower brain response to emotional facial expressions (e.g., Korpilahti et al., 2007)
Timing, an important factor
In autism, for familiar people:
• No difference in brain response latency to familiar faces (Dawson et al., 2002)
Background In autism, for unfamiliar people:
• Slower brain response to faces (e.g., Webb et al., 2006)
• Slower emotion recognition (e.g., Akechi et al., 2009; Bal et al., 2010)
• Delayed facial reactivity to emotions (Oberman et al., 2009)
• Slower brain response to emotional facial expressions (e.g., Korpilahti et al., 2007)
Timing, an important factor
In autism, for familiar people:
• No difference in brain response latency to familiar faces (Dawson et al., 2002)
• Response latency to emotion of familiar people?
Do children with autism react differently to emotions of familiar vs. unfamiliar people?
Normative response to emotions of familiar (not unfamiliar) people
- Response - Response latency
Eye-tracking Pupillometry
• Measure of automatic emotional reactions
• Non-invasive
Reactivity to Fear • Detectable physiological responses
(Ekman, Levenson, & Friesen, 1983)
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Methods
La Trobe University
Participants
• 25 children with ASD (mixed ability)
• 21 typically developing children
• 2 – 5 years
• Recruited from a university children’s centre (La Trobe University, Australia)
• Groups matched on age and gender ratio
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Methods
La Trobe University
Materials
• ADOS (autistic symptoms)
• Mullen (cognitive ability)
• Emotion videos
Apparatus
• Tobii Eye Tracker (T120)
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Videos
• 3 videos of familiar people and 3 of unfamiliar people (for each group)
Controlling Luminosity
• Stimuli
• Ambient
Data Reduction
• Pupil size measured at 60Hz
Outcome
• From mean of neutral to fear:
• Peak % change
• Peak % change latency
Methods
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Data not shown for copyright reasons
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Results
La Trobe University
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Results
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Results Summary
La Trobe University
The magnitude of children with autisms’ reactivity to emotion in:
• Familiar people: Normal
• Unfamiliar people: Reduced
The timing of emotional reactivity to emotion in:
• Familiar and unfamiliar people: Delayed
Conclusions
• Often-reported difficulties with emotions in autism may be particular to the emotions of unfamiliar people
• Familiarity with a person is necessary for an emotional response
• Perhaps the neural architecture for emotion processing in autism is functional
• Requires ‘bootstrapping’ for circuits involved in familiarity processing?
• Slower emotion processing in autism
• Likely to cause communication and social-reciprocity difficulties for children with autism
Overall Interpretations
Familiarity with a person may facilitate emotional reactivity for individuals with autism
Emotion processing takes more time for these individuals
“..there are the times when it all feels like an intricate dance, and I'm a step out of sync with everyone else around me” (http:/jerobison.blogspot.com.au, 2009)
Clinical Implications
Individuals with au&sm react normally to emo&ons of familiar people:
-‐ Establishing rapport is fundamental for crea,ng emo,onal learning opportuni,es
Emo&onal reac&ons takes more &me for these individuals:
-‐ Reac,ons that may seem unrelated to prior events, might be
Individuals with au,sm are not as pervasively detached from others’
emo,ons
Thank you
Acknowledgements
Families!
Kavi Jayasinghe, Carmela Germano and the rest of the OTARC team
Staff at La Trobe University Childrens’ Centre/ ASELCC
Russell Beaten
