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Chapter 122In addition to attentional alterations, individuals on the autism spectrum and individuals with social anxiety tend to interpret observed facial emotional expressions differently than controls. Namely, individuals on the autism spectrum may perceive emotional expressions as less intense (Tseng et al., 2014), have more difficulties in recognizing emotions (Yeung, 2022), and struggle in inferring mental states of others (Quinde-Zlibut et al., 2022) when compared to controls. These findings have been conceptualized as %u201cimpairments%u201d in traditional models such as the Theory of Mind model (ToM model; Baron-Cohen et al., 1985) and the broken mirror hypothesis (Ramachandran & Oberman, 2006; Southgate & Hamilton, 2008; J. H. G. Williams et al., 2001): According to ToM model, children on the autism spectrum would be less able to represent others%u2019 mental states and predict their behaviour, as they show difficulties in inferring another individual%u2019s mental state about a third person (second-order ToM; however see Tager-Flusberg, 2007). In contrast to this rather conceptual model, the broken mirror hypothesis links alterations in behaviour to alterations in neural activity that have been observed in autism. Difficulties in imitation, and other processes requiring attunement to other individuals, are proposed to stem from a dysfunction of a brain system, the mirror neuron system, whose activity reflects simulations of observed actions. Novel perspectives, in contrast, focus on identifying different strategies that individuals on the autism spectrum employ in processing others%u2019 emotions (Arnaud, 2020; Keating et al., 2023; Rutherford & McIntosh, 2007). In individuals with social anxiety, negatively-biased processing of facial information(Machado-de-Sousa et al., 2010) is assumed to explain observations such as a higher sensitivity towards negative expressions (Guti%u00e9rrez-Garc%u00eda & Calvo, 2017a; Joormann & Gotlib, 2006) and a higher misattribution of negative affect to neutral faces (Peschard & Philippot, 2017). Although individuals with social anxiety do not necessarily recognize expressions of others worse than controls, they have difficulties interpreting them (Buhlmann et al., 2015). In those lines, individuals with social anxiety are less accurate in inferring complex mental states of others (i.e., cognitive empathy) compared to controls, whereas the sharing of other%u2019s emotions (i.e., affective empathy) is comparable or under specific circumstances even enhanced (Alvi et al., 2020; Pittelkow et al., 2021). Taken together, individuals with social anxiety specifically seem to be receptive to negative facial expressions and biased in the interpretation of others%u2019 emotional displays. Individuals on the autism spectrum, in contrast, seem to attend to (emotional) facial displays less and process them differently, which can result in a misunderstanding of others%u2019 emotional states. Relevant alterations in processing facial information, thus, likely occur at various processing stages in autism and