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Divergent Patterns of Social Cognition Performance in Autism and 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11DS)

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Abstract

Individuals with developmental disorders frequently report a range of social cognition deficits including difficulties identifying facial displays of emotion. This study examined the specificity of face emotion processing deficits in adolescents with either autism or 22q11DS compared to typically developing (TD) controls. Two tasks (face emotion recognition and weather scene recognition) were used to explore group differences in visual scanpath strategy and concurrent recognition accuracy. For faces, the autism and 22q11DS groups demonstrated lower emotion recognition accuracy and fewer fixations compared to the TD group. Individuals with autism demonstrated fewer fixations to some weather scene stimuli compared to 22q11DS and TD groups, yet achieved a level of recognition accuracy comparable to the TD group. These findings provide evidence for a divergent pattern of social cognition dysfunction in autism and 22q11DS.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Kathryn Leadbeater and Ms. Brooke Sinderberry for their assistance in recruitment for the current study. Funding for the current study was obtained from the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) in the form of a Port-Waratah Coal Services post-doctoral fellowship and from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NMMRC) in the form of an Australian Training Fellowship (455624). The study was supported by the Schizophrenia Research Institute utilising infrastructure funding from the NSW Ministry of Health and funding from NSW Trade and Investment.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Schizophrenia Research Institute, 405 Liverpool St, Darlinghurst, NSW, 2010, Australia

    Kathryn L. McCabe, Dominique Rich, Gavin Cooper, Carmel M. Loughland & Ulrich Schall

  2. Centre for Translational Neuroscience and Mental Health Research, University of Newcastle, McAuley Centre, Edith Street, Waratah, NSW, 2298, Australia

    Kathryn L. McCabe, Dominique Rich, Gavin Cooper, Carmel M. Loughland, Ulrich Schall & Linda E. Campbell

  3. Hunter Medical Research Institute, Locked Bag 1, Hunter Region Mail Centre, New Castle, NSW, 2310, Australia

    Ulrich Schall & Linda E. Campbell

  4. School of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Science Offices, Ourimbah, NSW, 2258, Australia

    Jessica L. Melville, Paul A. Strutt & Linda E. Campbell

  5. School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia

    Carmel M. Loughland & Ulrich Schall

Authors
  1. Kathryn L. McCabe
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  2. Jessica L. Melville
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  3. Dominique Rich
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  4. Paul A. Strutt
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  5. Gavin Cooper
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  6. Carmel M. Loughland
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  7. Ulrich Schall
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  8. Linda E. Campbell
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Correspondence to Linda E. Campbell.

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McCabe, K.L., Melville, J.L., Rich, D. et al. Divergent Patterns of Social Cognition Performance in Autism and 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11DS). J Autism Dev Disord 43, 1926–1934 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1742-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1742-2

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