Autism Study

This project contrasts brain specialization for social information (faces) versus non-social information (letters of the alphabet) in individuals with autism. Using 256 channel nets, the study will also compare neural origins for these “expert stimuli” in children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children.

Children initially evaluated at age two are being re-evaluated at age eight to examine predictors of outcome and developmental trajectories. Along with neuropsychological, speech/language, and social assessments, electrophysiological brain response to human faces will be examined as an outcome measure.

This study examines how typically developing people and people with autism interpret ambiguous social information. Neural responses are recorded to varying forms of degraded and partial person-related information, simultaneously examining learning as ambiguity is reduced.

Groups of adults scoring high or low on a measure of extroversion are compared in their brain responses to veridical human faces and computer-generated cartoon faces.

By manipulating an individual’s point of gaze on an image of a human face, this project examines the influence of visual attention on face-related brain activity.