Face Perception in Autism Spectrum Disorder: From Singular to Modular Perspectives

U posljednjih se desetak godina u medijima često govori o povećanom broju dijagnosticiranih slučajeva autizma u djetinjstvu. U ovom sustavnom pregledu razmatramo razvoj razumijevanja percepcije lica, jedne od specifičnijih značajki autizma, u svjetlu komorbiditeta s aleksitimijom i uznapredovalih statističkih metodologija istraživanja. Navodimo literaturu koja se bavi percepcijom lica u autizmu u različitim kognitivnim zadacima i upućuje na važnost često komorbidne aleksitimije, kao i literaturu koja koristi neuroslikovne metode istraživanja i potvrđuje važnost različitih uzoraka gledanja u autizmu pri analizi rezultata. U svrhu poboljšane obrazovne i socijalne integracije osoba s autizmom i/ili aleksitimijom predlažemo teme za daljnje istraživanje.In the last few decades, the media have continuously reported on the increased number of diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This systematic review looks at the evolution of research on face perception, one of the characteristics of ASD, in the light of recently reported prevalence of alexythimia comorbidity, as well as improved statistical methods in cognitive research. We review the literature on behavioural face perception testing in autism, showing the importance of a prevalent comorbidity of alexythimia, as well as neural evidence showing the importance of differential eye gaze patterns in autism for data analysis. We suggest outstanding questions in the field in order to improve the integration of people with ASD and alexithymia into the educational and social contexts

The Oxford Face Matching Test:Short-form alternative

A recently published test of face perception, the Oxford Face Matching Test, asks participants to make two judgements: whether two faces are of the same individual; and how perceptually similar the two faces are. In the present study, we sought to determine to what extent the test can be shortened by removing the perceptual similarity judgements, and whether this impacts test performance. In Experiment 1, participants completed two versions of the test, with and without similarity judgements, in separate sessions in counterbalanced order. The version without similarity judgements took approximately 40% less time to complete. Performance on the matching judgements did not differ across versions and the correlation in accuracy across the two versions was comparable to the originally reported test-retest reliability value. Experiment 2 validated the version without similarity judgements against other measures, demonstrating moderate relationships with other face matching, memory and self-report face perception measures. These data indicate that a test version without the similarity judgements can substantially reduce administration time without impacting on test performance

Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia show independent impairments in face perception, face memory and face matching.

Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) all exhibit impairments in face memory, but the specificity of these face memory impairments is debated. One problem is that standard behavioural tasks are not able to provide independent measurement of face perception, face memory, and face matching (the decision process required to judge whether two instances of a face are of the same individual or different individuals). The present study utilised a new test of face matching, the Oxford Face Matching Test (OFMT), and a novel analysis strategy to derive these independent indices. Twenty-nine individuals with DP and the same number of matched neurotypical controls completed the OFMT, the Glasgow Face Matching Test, and the Cambridge Face Memory Test. Results revealed individuals with DP exhibit impairments in face perception, face memory and face matching. Collectively, these results suggest that face processing impairments in DP are more comprehensive than has previously been suggested

Psycho-social factors associated with mental resilience in the Corona lockdown.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. Although increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes, as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. To gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (22 March to 19 April) in a convenience sample of N = 15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p < 0.0001). The resilience factor PAS also partly mediated the positive association between perceived social support and resilience, and its association with resilience was in turn partly mediated by the ability to easily recover from stress (both p < 0.0001). In comparison with other resilience factors, good stress response recovery and positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis were the strongest factors. Preregistered exploratory subgroup analyses (osf.io/thka9) showed that all tested resilience factors generalize across major socio-demographic categories. This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts in this and in future pandemics

Visual Awareness Is Limited by the Representational Architecture of the Visual System

Visual perception and awareness have strict limitations. We suggest that one source of these limitations is the representational architecture of the visual system. Under this view, the extent to which items activate the same neural channels constrains the amount of information that can be processed by the visual system and ultimately reach awareness. Here, we measured how well stimuli from different categories (e.g., faces and cars) blocked one another from reaching awareness using two distinct paradigms that render stimuli invisible: visual masking and continuous flash suppression. Next, we used fMRI to measure the similarity of the neural responses elicited by these categories across the entire visual hierarchy. Overall, we found strong brain-behavior correlations within the ventral pathway, weaker correlations in the dorsal pathway, and no correlations in early visual cortex (V1-V3). These results suggest that the organization of higher level visual cortex constrains visual awareness and the overall processing capacity of visual cognition.Psycholog

Psycho-social factors associated with mental resilience in the Corona lockdown.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. Although increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes, as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. To gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (22 March to 19 April) in a convenience sample of N = 15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p < 0.0001). The resilience factor PAS also partly mediated the positive association between perceived social support and resilience, and its association with resilience was in turn partly mediated by the ability to easily recover from stress (both p < 0.0001). In comparison with other resilience factors, good stress response recovery and positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis were the strongest factors. Preregistered exploratory subgroup analyses (osf.io/thka9) showed that all tested resilience factors generalize across major socio-demographic categories. This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts in this and in future pandemics

Psycho-social factors associated with mental resilience in the Corona lockdown

Funder: State of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany (MARP program, DRZ program, Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research)Abstract: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. Although increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes, as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. To gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (22 March to 19 April) in a convenience sample of N = 15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p < 0.0001). The resilience factor PAS also partly mediated the positive association between perceived social support and resilience, and its association with resilience was in turn partly mediated by the ability to easily recover from stress (both p < 0.0001). In comparison with other resilience factors, good stress response recovery and positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis were the strongest factors. Preregistered exploratory subgroup analyses (osf.io/thka9) showed that all tested resilience factors generalize across major socio-demographic categories. This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts in this and in future pandemics