Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

Summer 7-16-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

July 2026

Department

Psychology

College Granting Degree

Charles E. Schmidt College of Science

Department Granting Degree

Psychology

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Nancy Aaron Jones

Abstract

The ability to identify facial emotional cues is an important nonverbal communicative skill that may be impaired in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), although prior research has produced inconsistent findings regarding the nature and extent of these impairments. The present study examined facial emotion recognition (FER) abilities in 105 children aged 3 to 8 years, including 32 children with ASD and 73 typically developing (TD) children. Relationships between FER performance and resting-state electroencephalographic (EEG) activity were explored in a smaller subsample. The study investigated effects of emotion type, facial familiarity, emotional intensity, and stimulus presentation format (dynamic versus static) on FER performance.

Results indicated that children with ASD achieved overall emotion recognition accuracy comparable to their TD peers. However, children with ASD required significantly more time to correctly identify emotional expressions and were more likely to respond only after the stimulus reached full intensity. Familiarity influenced performance differently across groups. Children with ASD demonstrated higher accuracy when identifying emotions displayed by their mothers compared to unfamiliar faces, whereas TD children demonstrated better performance on unfamiliar-face trials. Resting EEG analyses did not reveal significant group differences in the regional distribution of lower alpha power, although typically developing children showed a descriptively more posterior-dominant pattern than children with ASD. No significant group differences were observed in resting-state EEG alpha asymmetry, although the EEG sample was limited, particularly among children with ASD. Exploratory analyses indicated that central-temporal alpha power was not significantly associated with FER accuracy, though it was positively associated with autism-related symptom scores. These findings suggest that children with ASD may achieve comparable emotion recognition accuracy through mechanisms that are less automatic and more effortful than those used by TD children. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of facial familiarity in emotion recognition among children with ASD and suggest that familiar caregivers may play a unique role in supporting socio-emotional processing. Future research should further examine facial familiarity and potential genetic mechanisms underlying individual differences in FER performance.

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