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Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype

BACKGROUND: The ‘broader autism phenotype’ (BAP) refers to the mild expression of autistic-like traits in the relatives of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Establishing the presence of ASD traits provides insight into which traits are heritable in ASD. Here, the ability to recognise...

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Autores principales: Wilson, C. Ellie, Freeman, Phillipa, Brock, Jon, Burton, A. Mike, Palermo, Romina
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2943915/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20877561
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012876
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author Wilson, C. Ellie
Freeman, Phillipa
Brock, Jon
Burton, A. Mike
Palermo, Romina
author_facet Wilson, C. Ellie
Freeman, Phillipa
Brock, Jon
Burton, A. Mike
Palermo, Romina
author_sort Wilson, C. Ellie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The ‘broader autism phenotype’ (BAP) refers to the mild expression of autistic-like traits in the relatives of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Establishing the presence of ASD traits provides insight into which traits are heritable in ASD. Here, the ability to recognise facial identity was tested in 33 parents of ASD children. METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS: In experiment 1, parents of ASD children completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT), and a questionnaire assessing the presence of autistic personality traits. The parents, particularly the fathers, were impaired on the CFMT, but there were no associations between face recognition ability and autistic personality traits. In experiment 2, parents and probands completed equivalent versions of a simple test of face matching. On this task, the parents were not impaired relative to typically developing controls, however the proband group was impaired. Crucially, the mothers' face matching scores correlated with the probands', even when performance on an equivalent test of matching non-face stimuli was controlled for. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: Components of face recognition ability are impaired in some relatives of ASD individuals. Results suggest that face recognition skills are heritable in ASD, and genetic and environmental factors accounting for the pattern of heritability are discussed. In general, results demonstrate the importance of assessing the skill level in the proband when investigating particular characteristics of the BAP.
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spelling pubmed-29439152010-09-28 Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype Wilson, C. Ellie Freeman, Phillipa Brock, Jon Burton, A. Mike Palermo, Romina PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: The ‘broader autism phenotype’ (BAP) refers to the mild expression of autistic-like traits in the relatives of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Establishing the presence of ASD traits provides insight into which traits are heritable in ASD. Here, the ability to recognise facial identity was tested in 33 parents of ASD children. METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS: In experiment 1, parents of ASD children completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT), and a questionnaire assessing the presence of autistic personality traits. The parents, particularly the fathers, were impaired on the CFMT, but there were no associations between face recognition ability and autistic personality traits. In experiment 2, parents and probands completed equivalent versions of a simple test of face matching. On this task, the parents were not impaired relative to typically developing controls, however the proband group was impaired. Crucially, the mothers' face matching scores correlated with the probands', even when performance on an equivalent test of matching non-face stimuli was controlled for. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: Components of face recognition ability are impaired in some relatives of ASD individuals. Results suggest that face recognition skills are heritable in ASD, and genetic and environmental factors accounting for the pattern of heritability are discussed. In general, results demonstrate the importance of assessing the skill level in the proband when investigating particular characteristics of the BAP. Public Library of Science 2010-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC2943915/ /pubmed/20877561 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012876 Text en Wilson et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wilson, C. Ellie
Freeman, Phillipa
Brock, Jon
Burton, A. Mike
Palermo, Romina
Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype
title Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype
title_full Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype
title_fullStr Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype
title_full_unstemmed Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype
title_short Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype
title_sort facial identity recognition in the broader autism phenotype
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2943915/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20877561
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012876
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