Research

There is research available detailing the impairments in facial and emotional processing and resulting neurological differences are explained. (Pierce, 2001) found weak or no activation in the fusiform gyrus as well as significantly reduced activation in the amygdala, inferior occipital gyrus, and superior temporal sucus during a face perception task. (Durelle, 2004) revealed facial identities are determined in a different way in children with ASD versus typically developing children. Children with autism used high spatial frequency and the right inferior temporal gyrus which supports the weak central coherence theory of a feature based, local processing style. Typically developing children and adults use configural information which is a low spatial frequency processing. The authors concluded that children with autism processed faces like objects. They use a feature-based strategy instead of a global processing strategy. Finally, research indicates a specific deficit in the dorsal pathway of children since they are using the high spatial frequency processing.

(George and Conty, 2008) concluded that direct gaze perception is associated with increased fusiform, N170, and M170 responses in seen faces. Additionally, (Sasson, 2006) reported evidence of abnormalities in the amygdala, which is a brain region involved with assessing the emotional significance of a situation. Children with autism have enlarged amygdalas. The amygdala activates less for children with ASD when making judgments about facial affect. (Dawashima and Sugiura, 1999) found the left amygdala plays a role in interpretation of eye gaze and the right amygdala activation increases when another person's gaze is directed toward him. This supports the belief that the amygdala is involved in interpreting social signals from the face. Overall, these findings indicate that research has identified problems with facial and emotional processing and clear neurological differences are revealed during these processing tasks.

Durelle, C., Rondan, C., Gepner, B., Tardif, C. (2004). Spatial Frequency and Face Processing in Children with Autism and Asperger Syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, (34)2, 199-210.

George, N., Conty, L. (2008) Facing the gaze of others. Clinical Neurophysiology, 38, 197-207.

Kuwashima, R., Sugiura, M., Kato, T., Nakamura, A., Hatano, K., Ito, K., et al. The human amygdala plays an important role in gaze monitoring. Brain, (1999), 122, 779-783.

Pierce, K., Muller, R.-A., Ambrose, J., Allen, G., Courchesne, E. Face processing occurs outside the fusiform 'face area' in autism: evidence from functional MRI. Brain, (2001), 124, 2059-2073.

Sasson, N. (2006). The Development of Face Processing in Autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, (2006), (36)3, 381-394.