The Effect Of Autistic Traits On Emotion Recognition In College Students: Evidence From Eye Movement

The accurate perception of emotions through non-verbal sources such as faces,bodies and voices of others,and the adjustment of one’s own behavior in response,is a prerequisite for effective social interaction.However,individuals with higher levels of autistic traits have cognitive,personality and behavioral characteristics similar to those of autism spectrum disorder,which may be difficult to understand the meaning of other people’s gestures and expressions,and can’t correctly perceive other people’s emotional state,thus affecting their social interaction.Three studies were designed to explore the impact of the degree of autistic traits on emotion recognition in college students.In the first study,to examine the ability of college students with high or low autistic traits to recognize static emotions,868 freshman students at a university in Fujian were tested with the Comprehensive Autistic Trait Inventory(CATI),asked to view a total of 48 emotional face and body pictures in each of the six categories,and to judge the type and intensity of emotions.The results found that students with low autistic traits were better at recognizing static emotion pictures,they had a higher rate of correct judgment of emotional type and less deviation in emotional intensity judgment.In the second study,to examine the recognition of dynamic physical emotions and their eye movement patterns by college students in high or low autistic traits.Thirty-four college students with high autism traits and 36 students with low autism traits were asked to watch 12full-light emotional biological movement videos containing three types of emotions(anger,fear and sadness).Recording eye movement date to explore their eye movement patterns.The results found that(1)all students could identify emotions well,but students with low autism traits were better at identifying dynamic physical emotions than students with high autism traits.(2)The two groups had different eye movement patterns.The high group had better perception of stimuli in the early stage of visual processing,while the low group had more attention to stimuli in the middle stage of visual processing.(3)The emotional processing depth of them were the upper limbs,lower limbs and head.In the third study,to examine the recognition of abstract physical emotional and eyemovement processing patterns in college students with high or low autistic traits.The same subjects as in Study 2 were asked to watch 12 point-light emotion portrayals.The results found that(1)compared to low autistic students,high autistic students showed an advantage in the recognition of emotional point-light videos,especially in the recognition of fearful emotions.(2)The two groups showed different eye movement processing patterns compared with study 2.Whereby the low group could perceive the stimulus rapidly,while the high group focused more on the stimulus.(3)Both groups mainly attention to the upper limbs,followed by the lower limbs and head.Yet the two groups showed different processing preferences,with high autistic traits students showing a preference for lower limb areas and low autistic traits students processing upper limb area more.In conclusion,the recognition of emotions in college students with high or low autistic traits was influenced by the experimental material,type of emotion and body part.Those with low autistic traits recognized static emotions and full-light emotional portrayals better,and those with high autistic traits recognized point-light emotional portrayals better.Different patterns of eye-movement processing of emotions between the two,with more attentional processing in low group when viewing full-light videos and more in high group when viewing point-light videos.Both showed a similar pattern in the processing of emotional limb areas,but there was a preference for different parts in the processing.In the processing of different types of emotions,both groups identified anger emotions similarly,but the high group identified fear emotions better and the low group identified sadness emotions better.