IT鈥橲 not just people with autism who view the world differently. Some parents of autistic children evaluate facial expressions in a similar way to people with the condition, despite not being autistic themselves.
of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues first tested which of 42 parents of autistic children qualified as socially aloof 鈥� meaning that they tend not to enjoy small talk and have few close friendships. The team then asked the 15 aloof and 27 non-aloof parents plus the parents of 20 neurotypical children to judge whether faces looked happy or fearful.
People with autism often struggle to read others鈥� emotions, but all three groups of parents scored equally on the task. However, the socially aloof parents with autistic children were most reliant on looking at the mouth, rather than the eyes, when judging the faces (Current Biology, ). 鈥淭his bears a striking resemblance to what we have reported previously in individuals with autism,鈥� says Adolphs. Neurotypical people tend to use the eyes to read feeling.
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Autism is known to have a genetic component, so the discovery of specific, heritable behaviours may help to pin down genes responsible for particular autistic traits.
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