Page 152 - Demo

Chapter 5150As a third step, we explored whether, with higher autistic trait levels, facial muscle activity would be less predictive of emotion recognition performance for some emotions. To reduce the number of analysis, we decided not to run separate models for each emotion category but to run one model integrating all categories as well as the two muscle regions. More specifically, we fitted a GLMM on Emotion recognition accuracy with a three-way interaction between Emotion category(angry, happy, fearful, sad and neutral), Autistic traits and baseline-corrected, z-scored Corrugator activity, a three-way interaction between Emotion category, Autistic traits and baseline-corrected, z-scored Zygomaticus activity, and a two-way interaction between Emotion category and Social anxiety traits, and Alexithymia as control predictors. As in all models, random intercepts for each participant and each stimulus were included. ResultsReplication: Main Analysis Experiment 1As in Experiment 1, we did not observe a mediation of the effect of Autistic traitson Emotion recognition accuracy via Trait interoceptive accuracy (see Figure 3). The comparison against zero of slopes between Autistic traits and Emotion recognition accuracy of specific emotions in the first model revealed that only recognition of sad expressions was worse with higher Autistic traits, slope = -0.28, 95% CI [-0.54, -0.03], z = -2.86, p = .017 (path c, see Figure 4B, as well as Table S13 in the Supplemental Materials for the full model fit). Therefore, an indirect effect of Trait interoceptive accuracy on the association between Autistic traits and Emotion recognition accuracy of exclusively sad expressions was examined (path ab). As confidence limits included zero, %u00b5 = 0.01, 95% CL[-0.03, 0.06], we again found no indication that trait interoceptive accuracy would mediate worse emotion recognition with higher autistic trait levels. Next to a robust negative slope for sad expressions, we also observed a robust positive slope in the relation between autistic trait levels and the recognition of neutral expressions, trend = 0.35, 95% CI [0.08, 0.62], z = 3.29, p = .005. Unexpectedly, this observation indicates a better recognition of neutral expressions with higher autistic trait levels (see Figure 4B and Table S13 in the Supplemental Materials). In line with Experiment 1, the predictor Autistic traits was not significantly linked