The Differential Outcomes Procedure for improving the recognition of dynamic facial expressions of emotion in people with autism spectrum disorders and first-degree relatives

Previous research highlights impairments in the recognition of facial expression of emotion in individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Relatives of people with ASD may exhibit similar, albeit subtler, impairments, referred to as the Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP). Recently, the Differential outcomes procedure (DOP) has been shown to enhance this ability in young adults using dynamic stimuli, with fewer intensity levels required to identify fear and surprise. The present study aimed to extend these findings to adult diagnosed with ASD (ASD group), and relatives of people diagnosed with ASD (BAP group). A Bayesian Generalized Linear Model was employed for statistical inference. The results indicated that the ASD DOP group performed worse than the BAP DOP group in fear trials. The social dimension of autism negatively impacted performance in some conditions, while positive relationships were found between the repetitive behavior dimension and performance for the ASD group. The opposite pattern was observed in the BAP group. These results suggest the importance of considering different dimensions of autism when conducting research on its relationship with other variables. Finally, participants in both ASD and BAP groups required less intensity to identify certain emotions when the DOP was applied, highlighting its potential utility for improving dynamic facial emotion recognition.