Abstract
Utilizing a novel computerized task, we aimed to examine whether social anxiety symptoms would be related to individual differences in facial emotion recognition (FER) in a sample of autistic male adolescents and young adults without intellectual disability. Results indicated that social anxiety and IQ predicted poorer FER, irrespective of specific emotion type. When probing specific effects within emotion and condition types, social anxiety impacted surprise and disgust FER during a truncated viewing condition and not full viewing condition. Collectively, results suggest that social anxiety in autism may play a larger role in FER than previously thought. Future work should consider the role of social anxiety within autism as a factor that may meaningfully relate to FER assessment and intervention.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the participants who aided with this research. This research was sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health (R33MH100268; PI: J.A.R.). We also thank support from George E. and Hester B. Aker Fellowship (L.A.), Hulick Serving Spirit Award (L.A.), and T32MH018951 (L.A.).
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National Institute of Mental Health, R33MH100268, John A. Richey
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LA, AV, ATW, MCC, SWW, and JAR contributed to the conception of manuscript aims. LA, AV, ATW, MCC, CNC and KMG aided with data management and data collection. DG conducted pre-processing of data. LA and AV conducted analyses. LA, AV, ATW, and MCC drafted initial manuscript under guidance of SWW and JAR. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.
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The authors declare the following potential conflicts of interest. J.A.R. discloses that he is a statistical consultant for “Behaivior LLC,” the company has no interest in the results presented here, financial or otherwise. No other authors declare potential conflicts of interest.
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Antezana, L., Valdespino, A., Wieckowski, A.T. et al. Social Anxiety Symptoms Predict Poorer Facial Emotion Recognition in Autistic Male Adolescents and Young Adults Without Intellectual Disability. J Autism Dev Disord (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-05998-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-05998-5