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Embodied Facial Emotion Processing in Autism and Social Anxiety1716of various emotional expressions have been identified in neurotypical individuals (Wingenbach et al., 2020). Corresponding to the distinct facial muscle activation patterns in response to others%u2019 emotional facial expressions, researchers have aimed to identify consistent changes in autonomic activity that could reflect an embodiment of others%u2019 emotions. A clear physiological signature of perceiving distinct (facial) emotional expressions could, however, not be identified (Folz et al., 2022). Indexing sympathetic activity, skin conductance has been highlighted as a measure to validly reflect changes in experienced emotional arousal, independent of valence (Ventura-Bort et al., 2022). Alterations in Facial Mimicry in Autism and Social AnxietyResearch on mimicry of emotional facial expressions has revealed these automatic facial muscle responses to be reduced in individuals on the autism spectrum compared to neurotypical individuals (Davies et al., 2016). Importantly, the general facial expressiveness or the ability to mimic expressions voluntarily has not been described to be altered in autism (Rozga et al., 2013; Weiss et al., 2019), even though speed and precision of the latter might be decreased (Drimalla et al., 2021). Next to alterations in facial mimicry itself, it has recently been suggested that automatic simulations of others%u2019 expressions might be less strongly integrated in emotion processing in autism (Folz et al., 2023). Only few studies have investigated potential alterations of facial mimicry associated with social anxiety, and yielded inconclusive findings: some have reported no differences in sub-clinical individuals with higher levels of social anxiety traits (Dijk, Fischer, et al., 2018), but others have found enhanced mimicry of negative expressions, such as anger (Dimberg, 1997; Vrana & Gross, 2004) or disgust (PeterRuf et al., 2017). An enhanced mimicry of polite smiles has also been described in individuals with high social anxiety traits in a real social context (Dijk, Fischer, et al., 2018). Mimicry of genuine smiles, however, has not been observed to be enhanced in this study, and has even been found to be reduced in computerbased tasks (Dimberg, 1997; Vrana & Gross, 2004). Thus, individuals with social anxiety might rather mimic smiles more strongly in interaction with others as social signals and not as an enhanced simulation.