An ERP Study of Autistic Traits and Emotional Recognition in Non-Clinical Adolescence

Ken’ichi Nixima, Maiko Fujimori, Kazuo Okanoya

Department of Life Sciences, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; ERATO Okanoya Emotional Information Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Saitama, Japan; Emotional Information Joint Research Laboratory, Riken Brain Science Institute, Saitama, Japan.
ERATO Okanoya Emotional Information Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Saitama, Japan;Psycho-Oncology Division, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Chiba, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/psych.2013.46073                

Abstract

Autistic-like traits are characterized by impaired emotional recognition and proposed to be continuously distributed in the entire population. In the non-clinical population, however, the relationship between the autistic-like traits and the behavioral/physiological patterns of emotion processing ability has not been examined. In this study, we investigated the autistic traits (even including moderate-AQ participants) of typically developing adolescents, measured with the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), and the spectral property of their behavioral and physiological responses during emotion-discrimination tasks. Participants were screened and divided into three groups (high-, moderate-, and low-AQ groups) according to AQ scores. Each group participated in the subsequent emotion-discrimination (using angry, happy and neutral facial expressions) experiment involving event-related potentials (ERPs). The results indicated that high-AQ group displayed significant different patterns (lower late positive potentials) of the emotional processing involved in behavioral and physiological tasks compared with the moderate-AQ group. In contrast, their behavioral and physiological patterns were comparable to those shown in the low-AQ group. Thus, in the non-clinical adolescents, the spectrum of emotion recognition patterns might show a non-linear relationship with AQ scores, even suggesting that AQ could not be considered as a simple index for emotional processing.

Keywords

Autistic Traits; AQ; Emotions; Facial Expression; Event-Related Potentials

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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