Page 201 - Demo

General Discussion1997Figure 1. Illustration of the investigated (links between) processing stages and levels in identifying alterations in processing others%u2019 emotions in autism/social anxiety (trait levels) in each chapter. Colours represent the relevant characteristics of the examined sample (green = no individual differences, orange = social anxiety and autistic trait levels (checkered: autistic trait levels only), purple = diagnosis of autism or social anxiety). Chapter 2 examined differences in automatic responses towards emotional facial expressions associated with autistic and social anxiety trait levels at an early attentional stage. Chapter 3-6 all investigated effects of perceiving others%u2019 emotions on different levels (i.e., physiological resonance, subjective experience). Chapter 3 focused on the physiological resonance, represented in different bodily signals, and the interpretation of a diverse set of emotional expressions. Chapter 4 zoomed in on alterations in facial mimicry, confidence in emotion recognition and their links to facial emotion recognition associated with autistic and social anxiety trait levels. In addition to alterations in facial mimicry, Chapter 5 introduced individual differences in interoception as potential factor accounting for alterations in facial emotion perception associated with autistic trait levels. Building up on the findings of Chapter 3-5, Chapter 6 tested the hypothesized alterations in interoception and the (link between) physiological resonance (i.e., facial mimicry and emotional arousal) and subjective interpretation of facial expressions in individuals diagnosed with autism or social anxiety. Moving to real face-to-face interactions, an ongoing lab study explores individual differences in subjective experience, physiology and social behaviour (trust), as well as alterations in the link between physiological alignment between individuals and trust behaviour. As future goal, research should be conducted in more naturalistic settings, reflecting (alterations in) processing others%u2019 emotions in real life.