The influence of body posture on facial expression perception in Autism

Finn, Abigail, Shah, Punit, de la Rosa, Stephan, Teufel, Christoph ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3915-9716 and von dem Hagen, Elisabeth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1056-8196 2024. The influence of body posture on facial expression perception in Autism. Scientific Reports 14 (1) , 27655. 10.1038/s41598-024-79547-0

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Abstract

Facial expression perception is influenced by body posture, with perception biased toward the body emotion. Previous research has suggested that the magnitude of this biasing influence of body posture is driven by individual differences in the precision of facial expression representations underlying discrimination abilities, where lower precision leads to a greater influence of body posture. It is unclear however whether similar mechanisms might drive the influence of contextual cues in Autism, which is often characterised by reduced facial expression discrimination abilities. Here, we addressed this question by using online psychophysical methods to determine the precision of isolated face and body expression representations of anger and disgust, and the influence of body on facial expression perception, in autistic and non-autistic adults. Both groups showed a strong influence of body context on facial expression perception, but this influence was larger in the autistic group, mirroring their lower overall precision of facial expression representations relative to non-autistic individuals. Crucially, the magnitude of the biasing influence of body posture in both groups was related to the precision of individuals’ facial expression representations. The results suggest that similar principles govern the integration of facial expression and body posture information in both autistic and non-autistic individuals.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: open-access
Publisher:	Nature Research
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	13 November 2024
Date of Acceptance:	11 November 2024
Last Modified:	09 Dec 2024 16:51
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/173922

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