Communicative and Emotional Facial Expression Production in Children with Autism

描述（由申请人提供）：自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一系列广泛性发育障碍，每100-150名儿童中就有一人患病。自闭症患者的一个显著特征是他们难以表达情感和交流的面部表情。尽管有越来越多的文献研究自闭症谱系障碍患者处理面孔和面部表情的能力，但他们产生交流面部表情的能力几乎一无所知。我们的初步工作表明，自闭症青少年的面部表情一直被正常发育（TD）的人认为是不自然或尴尬的。本项目的目的是将ASD青少年面部表情产生的这种主观编码与尖端的面部特征红外运动跟踪相结合，以确定哪些特征运动驱动了尴尬的感知。我们假设运动跟踪数据与面部表情的强度和尴尬的主观编码之间存在很强的相关性。我们预计ASD和TD参与者之间的群体差异在引出性叙述方面最强，在对话方面较弱，在对情感诱导图像的自发反应方面最弱。我们的具体目标是：通过主观编码表征青少年ASD自发性面部交流行为。1 b。比较自发对话中的面部表情与引导性叙述中的面部表情。2 a。指定潜在的面部特征动作，产生被认为不自然或尴尬的表情。2 b。收集初步数据，为改善面部表情产生的干预措施的发展提供信息。对于目标1a和1b，我们将应用我们之前开发的编码系统来捕捉面部强度和自然度，并将其应用于现有的ASD青少年和TD同龄人之间自发对话的视频。然后，我们将该数据集与在试点研究中收集的引出叙述的编码数据进行比较。对于目标2a和2b，我们将使用运动跟踪器记录每个参与者面部和头部的33个反射标记的运动，高速红外摄像机与数字摄像机帧同步。这两套相机将使我们能够将主观的、感知的面部编码与离散面部特征运动的精确时间同步数据联系起来。我们期望特定的特征运动与对尴尬的感知相关。我们将分析面部表情引出的叙述，引导对话，以及自发的情感反应，诱发情绪的图像。这三个任务将使我们能够比较自发的和诱导的面部表情，以及对比自然的情感反应和交流的情感表达。我们的最终目标是确定自闭症患者面部表情产生的潜在机制，并开始制定教学策略，使他们产生更自然的表情，从而获得更大的社会接受。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a range of pervasive developmental disorders that strike one out of 100-150 children. One hallmark feature of individuals with ASD is their difficulty with emotional and communicative facial expressions. Although there is a growing literature on the ability of individuals with ASD to process faces and facial expressions, virtually nothing is known about their ability to produce communicative facial expressions. Our preliminary work shows that facial expressions produced by adolescents with ASD are consistently perceived by typically developing (TD) individuals as unnatural or awkward. The purpose of the proposed project is to combine such subjective coding of facial expression productions in adolescents with ASD with cutting-edge, infrared motion-tracking of facial features to determine which feature movements drive the perception of awkwardness. We hypothesize strong correlations between motion-tracking data and the subjective coding of intensity and awkwardness for facial expressions. We expect group differences between the ASD and TD participants to be strongest in elicited narratives, weaker in conversations, and weakest in spontaneous reactions to emotion inducing images. Our specific aims are: 1a.To characterize the spontaneous facial communicative behavior of adolescents with ASD through subjective coding. 1b. To compare facial communication in spontaneous conversations with expressions produced during elicited narratives. 2a. To specify the underlying facial feature movements creating expressions perceived as unnatural or awkward. 2b. To collect preliminary data to inform development of interventions aimed at improving facial expression production. For aims 1a and 1b, we will apply our previously developed coding system for the capture of facial intensity and naturalness to existing videos of spontaneous conversations between adolescents with ASD and TD peers. We will then compare this dataset with coding data of elicited narratives collected during a pilot study. For aims 2a and 2b we will use a motion-tracker to record movements of 33 reflective markers on each participant's face and head with high-speed infrared cameras that are frame-synched to a digital video camera. These two sets of cameras will allow us to correlate subjective, perceptual coding of the face with precisely time-synched data of discrete facial feature movements. We expect specific feature movements to be correlated with the perception of awkwardness. We will analyze facial expressions in elicited narratives, guided conversations, and spontaneous affective reactions to emotion inducing images. These three tasks will allow us to compare spontaneous and elicited facial expressions, as well as contrast natural affective responses and communicative emotional expressions. Our ultimate goal is to determine the underlying mechanics of facial expression production in individuals with ASD and begin developing teaching strategies for the production of more naturalistic expressions that may lead to greater social acceptance. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), even those with seemingly intact language skills, rarely succeed at face-to-face social interaction, with one of their most noticeable deficits being the production of atypical and often jarring facial expressions. The proposed project will provide a significant contribution to the field by using cutting-edge motion-tracking technology combined with subjective coding to establish a first cohesive picture of the communicative facial expression productions of adolescents with ASD. These data will ultimately allow us to derive new intervention approaches to improve facial communication and thereby social acceptance of individuals with ASD.