Premium
Modulation of attentional blink with emotional faces in typical development and in autism spectrum disorders
Author(s) -
Yerys Benjamin E.,
Ruiz Ericka,
Strang John,
Sokoloff Jennifer,
Kenworthy Lauren,
Vaidya Chandan J.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/jcpp.12013
Subject(s) - psychology , attentional blink , rapid serial visual presentation , autism , facial expression , perception , developmental psychology , visual perception , autism spectrum disorder , cognitive psychology , audiology , emotional expression , neuroscience , communication , medicine
Background: The attentional blink (AB) phenomenon was used to assess the effect of emotional information on early visual attention in typically developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The AB effect is the momentary perceptual unawareness that follows target identification in a rapid serial visual processing stream. It is abolished or reduced for emotional stimuli, indicating that emotional information has privileged access to early visual attention processes. Methods: We examined the AB effect for faces with neutral and angry facial expressions in 8‐ to 14‐year‐old children with and without an ASD diagnosis. Results: Children with ASD exhibited the same magnitude AB effect as TD children for both neutral and angry faces. Conclusions: Early visual attention to emotional facial expressions was preserved in children with ASD.