Page 202 - Demo

Chapter 7200Theoretical ImplicationsWhile Table 1 provides a summary of the key findings by chapter, Figure 1 illustrates the overall framework, including all constructs of interest and their relations, and places the chapters in this framework. The remainder of this section discusses the integrated findings in the context of the literature. I will first provide separate summaries of findings related to facial emotion processing in autism and in social anxiety (trait levels), then contrast the resulting insights, and lastly also mention some general findings on facial emotion processing and the role of the body therein. Alterations in Facial Emotion Processing Associated with Autism (Trait Levels)The literature on (facial) emotion perception in autism predominantly suggests that emotions of others resonate less in individuals with autism. I examined indicators at various processing stages and levels, and I found, at least to some extent, support for this assumption. At an early attentional processing stage, which is generally characterized by biases towards emotional facial expressions in non-autistic individuals, a weaker bias related to autistic trait levels was found only, and not consistently, in the context of happiness displays (Chapter 2). Previous research with autistic samples mainly investigated biases towards anger displays and consistently described the existence of an attentional bias to social threat (i.e., angry faces) in autism (phrased as %u201cintact%u201d, e.g., Fan et al. 2020). Considering the current findings in relation to autistic trait levels, it would be interesting to examine in how far this extends to other emotions, such as happiness, in individuals on the autism spectrum. My findings thus call for a broader investigation of modulations in attentional biases toward different emotions in autism. The physiological resonance of emotions, as level of description within facial emotion processing, is commonly operationalized in terms of either facial mimicry or changes in physiological arousal. Although facial mimicry was not always affected in the same emotion categories across studies, the thesis overall shows weaker mimicry responses related to autism in non-autistic (apart from Chapter 3) and clinical samples. This general finding is in line with the vast literature on reduced facial mimicry in autism (Leung et al., 2023; Uljarevic & Hamilton, 2013). Potential alterations in physiological arousal in response to emotional expressions,