Abstract
Although persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a range of cognitive impairments, their perceptual abilities are generally preserved, with the notable exception of face perception. This deficit goes beyond face recognition and discrimination to include impairments processing emotion, gaze direction, and gender, and may contribute to the social impairments associated with ASD. Atypical face processing is evident in behavioral measures of processing strategy, as well as electrophysiological and neuroimaging data. The absence of perceptual expertise with faces may arise from reduced and abnormal experience with faces across the course of development, potentially caused by a combination of visuocognitive and socioaffective abnormalities. This notion is supported by results of training interventions, where persons with ASD aretrained to become "face experts" using training protocols that have been successful for teaching other forms of object expertise.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Perceptual expertise |
Subtitle of host publication | Bridging brain and behavior |
Editors | Isabel Gauthier, Michael Tarr, Daniel Bub |
Place of Publication | Oxford; New York |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 139-166 |
Number of pages | 28 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780195309607 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Feb 2010 |
Externally published | Yes |