Investigating the Influence of Autism Spectrum Traits on Face Processing Mechanisms in Developmental Prosopagnosia.

Researchers studied people who have trouble recognizing faces (prosopagnosia) and looked at whether having autism traits makes this different. They found that people with face recognition problems had similar difficulties whether they had high or low autism traits. However, those with higher autism traits also had extra trouble understanding emotions in faces and showed different brain activity patterns in social processing areas.

This neuroimaging study examined face processing differences between individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) who had high versus low autism traits. Researchers used fMRI to compare 43 DP participants (split by autism quotient scores) with 27 controls. Both DP groups showed similar deficits in face memory and perception, plus reduced brain activity in face-processing regions. However, those with higher autism traits had additional difficulties recognizing facial emotions and showed decreased activity in brain regions associated with social cognition.

The findings suggest that autism traits in DP primarily add emotional processing challenges rather than fundamentally altering the core face recognition difficulties.

Results suggest that autism traits in developmental prosopagnosia primarily add emotional processing challenges rather than altering core face recognition deficits. This has implications for assessment and intervention approaches, potentially requiring additional focus on emotion recognition training for individuals with both conditions.

Small sample size of 43 DP participants. Single study design limits generalizability. Unclear if findings apply to broader autism population. Abstract lacks detail on methodology and statistical significance of findings.

Autism traits are common exclusionary criteria in developmental prosopagnosia (DP) studies. We investigated whether autism traits produce qualitatively different face processing in 43 DPs with high vs. low autism quotient (AQ) scores. Compared to controls (n = 27), face memory and perception were similarly deficient in the high- and low-AQ DPs, with the high-AQ DP group additionally showing deficient face emotion recognition. Task-based fMRI revealed reduced occipito-temporal face selectivity in both groups, with high-AQ DPs additionally demonstrating decreased posterior superior temporal sulcus selectivity.

Resting-state fMRI showed similar reduced face-selective network connectivity in both DP groups compared with controls. Together, this demonstrates that high- and low-AQ DP groups have very similar face processing deficits, with additional facial emotion deficits in high-AQ DPs.