Study: Autistic People Recognize Emotions Better Than Neurotypical in Cartoons

Researchers at the United Kingdom’s Edge Hill University and Italy’s Università Iuav di Venezia conducted a study in which 98 neurotypical and 98 autistic participants of around the same age were asked to identify specific emotions. The participants took two versions of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) test, in which subjects are given photos or cartoon depictions of human eyes and asked which feelings the eyes are attempting to convey. Though the standard RME typically only involves photos of human eyes, prior research has shown that the “irregular eye gaze” implied in these static photos exploits the cognitive standards autistic people have that neurotypical people do not share. As a result, a cartoon version (C-RME) was also administered to see if this perceived irregularity would disappear.

The participants with autism fared better than expected. In their entry for the journal Autism Research, the researchers write that autistic participants “did not perform significantly worse” on the RME than their neurotypical counterparts. Although neurotypicals achieved an average 72 percent accuracy rate on the RME, autistic participants came close to this score at 68 percent accuracy. Perhaps even more interesting is that autistic participants outperformed neurotypicals on the C-RME, with average accuracy rates of 64 percent and 59 percent, respectively.

There are two explanations for autistic participants’ better-than-expected RME and C-RME scores, according to the research team. The first is that the autistic group consisted mainly of women, and autistic girls and women are thought to be better at recognizing human emotional cues. (That said, we now know that girls and women are routinely excluded from autism studies, meaning the foundational information we often take for granted might be somewhat flawed.)

The second is that autistic people might have an enhanced ability to conduct anthropomorphic emotional recognition based on prior life experience. “Autism research is rife with studies showing that autistic people enjoy engaging with the nonhuman and may be doing so increasingly throughout development, whether it be through animation, contact with pets, animal-assisted therapy, or even embodying the nonhuman during online game-play,” the study reads. “This type of engagement may allow autistic people to develop social expertise and derive social pleasure in ways that do not rely on human specialization.”

Nonetheless, the study affirms what many of us have long suspected to be true: Autistic individuals aren’t devoid of social and emotional skills, those skills are just different. As the researchers note, measuring neurodivergent skills against neurotypical benchmarks often creates more problems than it solves.

Continue reading

Scientists Confirm the Presence of Water on the Moon

Scientists have confirmed the discovery of molecular water on the moon. Is there any of it in a form we can use? That's less clear.

Review: The Oculus Quest 2 Could Be the Tipping Point for VR Mass Adoption

The Oculus Quest 2 is now available, and it's an improvement over the original in every way that matters. And yet, it's $100 less expensive than the last release. Having spent some time with the Quest 2, I believe we might look back on it as the headset that finally made VR accessible to mainstream consumers.

SpaceX Launches ‘Better Than Nothing’ Starlink Beta

Those lucky few who have gotten invitations to try the service will have to pay a hefty up-front cost, and the speeds aren't amazing. Still, it's a new generation of satellite internet.

Samsung, Stanford Built a 10,000 PPI Display That Could Revolutionize VR, AR

Ask anyone who has spent more than a few minutes inside a VR headset, and they'll mention the screen door effect. This could eliminate it for good.