Objectives: We investigated emotional face processing in children with and without autism using event related potentials (ERPs).
Methods: High-functioning children with autism (n = 15, mean age = 10.5 ± 3.3 years) completed an implicit emotional task while visual ERPs were recorded. Two groups of typically developing children (chronological age-matched and verbal equivalent age-matched [both n = 15, mean age = 10.51 ±3.2 years and 7.7 ± 3.8 years respectively]) also participated in this study.
Results: The early ERP responses to faces (P1 and N170) were delayed, and the P1 was smaller in children with autism than in typically developing children of the same chronological age, revealing that the first stages of emotional face processing are affected in autism. However, when matched by verbal equivalent age, only P1 amplitude remained affected in autism.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that the emotional and facial processing difficulties in autism could start from atypicalities in visual perceptual processes involving rapid feedback to primary visual areas and subsequent holistic processing.