NicksQuestions wrote:
marshall wrote:
I think the correlations are statistically significant. They just aren't significant enough to claim that the ability to read facial expressions is the fundamental difference between AS and NT because of the large variance in the AS scores and the general left-skewness to the score distribution. Even though the AS mean is low there's clearly a lot who score much higher than the mean, even higher than the NT mean.
What you say makes sense that the ability to read the eyes is not the fundamental difference between AS and NT's.
I guess it's similar to a theory of mind test they did earlier with HFA vs. Down Syndrome children, which was interesting. Most of the normal children group and Down Syndrome group were able to out perform children with high-functioning autism in a story telling perspective taking test. The HFA had much higher IQ's then the Down Syndrome children, but the DS were able to out do the HFA in social cognition, showing there's more to it than IQ. However, at the same time there were a few HFA individuals who were able to get the test correct, while a few normal and DS children were not. So they said theory of mind can't be the only reason, but may be part of the problem for many of them.
My best guess is that the reason for poor performance by HFA children in the theory of mind test is a matter of attention bias. Autistic children probably pay more attention to less relevant objects and details in the story rather than what's in the characters' minds. I'm saying this because I know that I have more trouble following films than NT's and the reason is due to my tendency to over-focus on certain visual elements or details that aren't really relevant to story. It's extremely hard for me to stay focused on the dialog and what characters might be thinking. I can remember watching Star Wars repeatedly as a child and not once caring about the story or what they characters were aiming to accomplish. I simply liked the spaceships, the light-saber battles, the way Darth Vader sounded when he talked, etc. I watched it purely for the visuals and sensory experience.
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What I'm now curious about is if there's an overall correlation between Eyes Test scores and social skills within the HFA/AS group, after controlling for other variables. Even if there is not a distinctive line between them and NT's, if the ability to read the eyes is related to social skill abilities within the AS/HFA group, then it would be a practical issue to consider, maybe as far as the interventions perspective is concerned. If not, then it wouldn't be so practical but rather a symptom that shows up only after evaluating large populations.
I tend to think that I'm quite perceptive of people's moods in real life, in fact better than a lot of NT's. Yet my social skills are still very poor. Clearly reading emotions/moods from facial expressions is a necessary trait for having good social skills but it's definitely not sufficient. There's clearly more to non-verbal communication than understanding what other's are feeling emotionally.
If I have any trouble it's with the more emotionally neutral non-verbal cues, such as signals for when someone is about to finish speaking or when the group wants to wrap up a particular topic. NT's seem to have non-verbal ways of reaching a consensus where I feel that my input goes unnoticed because I don't do the signals right. This stuff is very different from facial expressions. It doesn't seem nearly as innate. It's something NT's automatically learn whereas I don't even pay attention. My mind isn't marking these things as relevant when it should be.
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Then I've also heard that eye tracking devices have found adult AS look at the eyes less in social interaction than NT's do, so I think it is possible that the overall mean scores being lower than the NT's may just be a side effect of not making as much eye contact during the appropriate times.
I agree. I found that while taking the test there were really two methods I used to decide which answer to pick. The first method was to simply think about what I would most likely feel while making my eyes appear like the picture. This method doesn't rely on memory of someone else making the expression with their eyes. In the case where the first method didn't work I had to try and think back to contexts in which I had witnessed the expression in the picture. Usually the context was an actor in a film or television show rather than a person in real life. For example, if I'd never watched movies or television I wouldn't know the expressions for "confident", "decisive", or "flirtatious" because I've never personally witnessed them so blatantly on display in real life.
16 Jul 2009, 4:22 pm
