Face individual identity recognition: a potential endophenotype in autism
Publication Date
2020-10-21Journal Title
Molecular Autism
ISSN
2040-2392
Publisher
BioMed Central
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
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Minio-Paluello, I., Porciello, G., Pascual-Leone, A., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2020). Face individual identity recognition: a potential endophenotype in autism. Molecular Autism https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-020-00371-0
Abstract
Background: Face individual identity recognition skill is heritable and independent of
intellectual ability. It can be measured early in development, in individuals with
intellectual disability and is translatable to animal models. Difficulties in face individual
identity recognition are present in autistic individuals and their family members and are
possibly linked to oxytocin polymorphisms in families with an autistic child. While we
know that developmental prosopagnosia (i.e., impaired face identity recognition)
occurs in 2-3% of the general population, no prosopagnosia prevalence estimate is
available for autism. Furthermore, an autism within-group approach has not been used
to characterize impaired face memory and investigate its possible links to social and
communication difficulties.
Methods: We estimated prevalence of prosopagnosia in 80 autistic adults with no
intellectual disability, investigated its cognitive characteristics and links to autism
symptoms’ severity, personality traits and mental state understanding from the eye
region by using standardized tests and questionnaires.
Results: More than one third of autistic participants showed prosopagnosia. Their face
memory skill was not associated to their symptom’s severity, empathy, alexithymia or
general intelligence. Face identity recognition was instead linked to mental state
recognition only in autistic individuals who had prosopagnosia, and this relationship did
not depend on participants’ basic face perception skills. Importantly, we found that
autistic participants were not aware of their face memory skills.
Conclusions: Impaired facial individual identity recognition is found in a large subgroup
of individuals on the autism spectrum and is associated with difficulties in mental state
understanding from the eye region. Testing for face memory could, in the future,
potentially be used to stratify autistic individuals in genetically meaningful and oxytocinrelevant
subgroups and be translatable to autism animal models.
Embargo Lift Date
2100-01-01
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-020-00371-0
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/306126
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY)
Licence URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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