Facial Affect Differences in Autistic and Non-Autistic Adults Across Contexts and Their Relationship to First-Impression Formation

Abstract

Background: Autistic people often receive unfavorable first impressions from non-autistic people, likely because of stigma related to divergent social presentations and expressive behaviors. Although facial expressivity influences first impressions in the general population, no research has examined whether expressivity differences in autism relate to the formation of first impressions by non-autistic people. It is also unclear whether facial expressivity in autism varies depending upon contextual demands and whether this affects first impressions.

Methods: We video-recorded 21 autistic and 21 non-autistic adults in two contexts, interviewing for their ideal job and discussing a personal interest, and quantified the percentage of video frames displaying positive, neutral, and negative facial affect using iMotions software. We also compared facial affect between the autistic and non-autistic groups within and between contexts. Later, 335 non-autistic undergraduates rated participants using the First Impression Scale to assess whether impressions were modulated by context and showed associations with facial expressivity.

Results: Findings demonstrated that autistic and non-autistic adults differed in overall emotional expressivity, with non-autistic participants displaying more positive affect at a trend-level than autistic participants. Autistic adults also received less favorable first impressions, and these showed some correspondence with their emotional expressivity. For example, their displays of negative affect were moderately to strongly related to worse impressions in the job interview context, a pattern not found to the same degree for non-autistic participants. Impressions of autistic participants also improved more than for non-autistic ones when talking about a personal interest compared with the job interview context, and when their diagnosis was disclosed to observers.

Discussion: Collectively, these findings indicate that autistic people demonstrate divergent facial emotional expressivity that relates to the less favorable impressions they receive from non-autistic observers. Context and diagnostic disclosure also affect how autistic people are perceived.

Community brief: Why is this an important issue?: Autistic people are often stigmatized in professional and personal settings. It is important to understand the factors that relate to stigma in everyday contexts to create more inclusive environments for autistic people.What was the purpose of this study?: To understand whether autistic differences in how emotions are expressed in the face relate to how autistic people are perceived in personal and professional contexts.What did the researchers do?: We asked autistic and non-autistic adults to describe a personal interest and sit for a mock job interview. Later, non-autistic people provided their first impressions of adults and reported on how successful they believed participants were in communicating a personal interest, and in getting hired from their interview. We also examined the facial expressions of participants to see if expressions related to the first impressions autistic and non-autistic people received.What were the results of the study?: We found that autistic and non-autistic adults differ in how they display emotions in their faces, and these differences related to how autistic adults were perceived by non-autistic observers. Autistic expressions were less often categorized as displaying positive emotion, and their displays of negative emotion were related to poorer first impressions in job interviews. Context also affected these judgments. Autistic participants received poorer first impressions in a professional context relative to a personal context, and they were rated as more successful when observers were informed that the person they rated was autistic.What do these findings add to what was already known?: These findings indicate that autistic people express emotion differently in their faces and this is associated with non-autistic people viewing them less favorably than non-autistic people. Furthermore, autistic people were evaluated more positively when talking about personal interests than when interviewing for a job, which did not happen to the same degree for non-autistic people. These findings suggest that biases toward divergent displays of facial expressions may contribute to the disparities autistic people face in personal and professional contexts.What are potential weaknesses in the study?: The software used to analyze facial expressions was developed on non-autistic people and may not accurately measure autistic facial emotion. The autistic sample included in the study was also limited in size and lacked diversity. Future research should include other groups of autistic people, such as those with higher support needs.How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?: The results may be used to inform non-autistic people of their biases toward the expressive differences of autistic adults in personal and professional contexts to help minimize discrimination and exclusion.

Keywords: autism; context; emotion; facial affect; first impressions; stigma.