Jellema, T. & Palumbo, L.
Department of Psychology, Hull University, Hull, United Kingdom
Contributions of ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ influences to perceptual judgments of dynamic facial expressions were explored in adults with either typical development (TD) or Asperger’s syndrome (AS). We examined the roles played by basic perceptual processes (such as sequential contrast effects and adaptation) and by ’emotional anticipation’, i.e. the involuntary anticipation of the other’s emotional state of mind based on the immediately preceding perceptual history. Short video-clips of faces displaying emotional expressions (100% joy or 100% anger) that morphed into a (nearly) neutral expression were presented. Both TD and AS individuals judged the final expression of the joy-videos as slightly angry and the final expression of the anger-videos as slightly happy (‘overshoot’ bias). However, a change in identity of the actor just before the final neutral expression was reached removed the overshoot bias in the TD group, but not in the AS group. Another manipulation, involving neutral-to-emotion-to-neutral sequences, again differentiated between the TD and ASD participants. These findings suggest that in TD individuals but not in AS individuals, the perceptual judgments of other’s facial expressions are influenced by emotional anticipation (a low-level mindreading mechanism). Individuals with AS may have applied compensatory mechanisms.