Page 193 - Demo
P. 193


                                    Embodied Facial Emotion Processing in Autism and Social Anxiety1916expected to see an indication of a heightened sensitivity to negative social signals in the perceived intensity ratings. Importantly, participants were already exposed to each expression twice prior to rating it, which might have diminished negatively biased processing (Staugaard, 2010). We did, however, find evidence that the automatic physiological resonance of some expressions was differentially linked to how intensely they were perceived in the two clinical groups compared to the control group. Alterations in the Link between Physiological Resonance and Facial Emotion Perception, and the Role of InteroceptionNext to observing reductions in mimicking happy facial expressions as well as in facial emotion perception more broadly, we also found evidence for a weaker link between the mimicry and the perceived emotional intensity of angry expressions in individuals on the autism spectrum compared to neurotypical controls. Initially, we expected that a weaker link between physiological resonance and facial emotion perception in autism would become apparent in the prediction of emotion recognition accuracy, rather than perceived emotional intensity (Folz et al., 2023). Nevertheless, the direction of the effect was in line with our expectations, namely that higher corrugator activity was more strongly linked to perceiving angry expressions as more emotionally intense in neurotypical individuals compared to individuals on the autism spectrum. Although we cannot infer causality from our analysis, we suggest, based on theoretical frameworks as well as previous research that the simulation of expression-congruent muscle activations can boost emotion perception in others (Niedenthal et al., 2010; however see Holland et al., 2020). This embodied path to emotion perception might, in contrast, not be as strongly pronounced in individuals on the autism spectrum as in neurotypical individuals. One relevant variable in this path might be the ability to accurately sense signals from the body, reflected in measures of interoceptive accuracy (Arnold et al., 2019). When accounting for self-reported interoceptive accuracy in the link between corrugator activity and perceived emotional intensity of angry expressions, evidence for differences between individuals on the autism spectrum and neurotypical individuals was less robust, yet still present. A closer examination of the role of interoceptive accuracy in integrating signals from one%u2019s own body in perceiving others%u2019 emotion might thus be promising in gaining further insights in altered facial emotion perception in autism. 
                                
   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197